Joe Sestak

MIDDLETOWN — With Keystone State payrolls smaller than they were in 1999, Pennsylvania's candidates for U.S. Senate worked Friday to control the debate over where the jobs went, and why they're not coming back.

Republican Pat Toomey, echoing business leaders, has seized on Obama administration policies supported by Democrat Joe Sestak, such as the new federal health care law. Toomey says such policies are slowing the recovery; worries over the cost of new regulations and taxes have rendered companies unwilling to hire, he has said.

But Sestak, struggling to gain ground in independent polls, is targeting policies supported by Toomey that, he maintains, are friendly to multinational companies and give them incentives to move operations to foreign countries.

Toomey approves of China dumping cheap, government-subsidized goods on American consumers and supports a loophole that allows American companies to earn profits overseas without paying taxes on them at home, Sestak said.

In comparison, Sestak said he has pushed for tax breaks and guaranteed bank loans to small businesses, which do the most hiring in the nation's economy.

"This is the engine of our economy, this is it, small businesses. Congressman Toomey says it's 'an unfortunate tendency' to buy American," Sestak told about two dozen employees of a Harrisburg-area manufacturer of exercise and rehabilitation pools.Sestak is a second-term U.S. House member from the Philadelphia suburbs and a former Navy admiral whose credentials during a 31-year career include commanding an aircraft battle group in support of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.Toomey is a former investment banker and restaurant owner who also represented the Allentown area in Congress from 1999 to 2005. He more recently headed up the Washington, D.C.-based free-market advocacy group, Club for Growth.Two weeks ago, the U.S. House overwhelmingly approved a measure that would allow the federal government to seek trade sanctions against China and other nations for manipulating their currency to gain trade advantages. Every U.S. House member from Pennsylvania voted for it, including Sestak.Toomey said he would have voted against it, calling it bad economic policy.

Pat Toomey