Democratic Senate candidate Elaine Marshall on Tuesday accused Republican Sen. Richard Burr of helping block the extension of unemployment benefits for millions of North Carolinians.
Marshall, the secretary of state, held a news conference outside Burr's Winston-Salem office, where she delivered a petition of 15,000 signatures urging Burr to end his opposition.
"For months my opponent has been working against our working families - blocking the extension of unemployment benefits," Marshall said in prepared remarks. "Because of this partisan obstruction, more than 2.5 million Americans have been cut off (from) unemployment benefits they desperately need to survive."
She was accompanied by several unemployed North Carolinians.Marshall, the secretary of state, held a news conference outside Burr's Winston-Salem office, where she delivered a petition of 15,000 signatures urging Burr to end his opposition.
"For months my opponent has been working against our working families - blocking the extension of unemployment benefits," Marshall said in prepared remarks. "Because of this partisan obstruction, more than 2.5 million Americans have been cut off (from) unemployment benefits they desperately need to survive."
Burr's office released a statement saying that he agrees with President Barack Obama's statement last November that benefits must be extended in "a financially responsible way" that does not add to the national debt.
Burr said Republican proposals to pay for extended benefits by making cuts elsewhere in government had been blocked by Democrats four times.
"I think everyone agrees that we should extend unemployment benefits, but one party is using this as a political tool while the other party wants to extend the benefits and pay for them," Burr said.
Meanwhile, the state Democratic Party released a Web video of Burr giving a C-SPAN interview in March in which he said automatically extending unemployment benefits for 12 months would be a "discouragement to individuals out there to actually go out and go through the interview process."
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