HERSHEY — Pennsylvania's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Pat Toomey acknowledged Monday that Republicans spent too much money under former President George W. Bush and said giving students a taxpayer-paid path to private schools would improve public schools.

The subject of spending under Bush came up when interviewer Ted Koppel told Toomey that spending rose disproportionately more during the Republican president's eight years than it did during the eight years under Bill Clinton, the Democrat who preceded Bush.

Toomey, who represented the Lehigh Valley as a U.S. Representative from 1999 to 2005, said he tried to stand up against such spending when he was in Congress.

"I consistently opposed my own party when I thought they were spending too much money, which I thought they were doing routinely," Toomey responded. "And I opposed some of the big new initiatives that they launched, I opposed many of the appropriations bills which I thought were bloated. I put myself in an uncomfortable position with respect to leadership of my own party."

Then he turned the conversation back to his criticism of policies under Democratic President Barack Obama: "Let's be clear, the current administration in Congress is taking it through the roof."

They spoke in front of an audience of hundreds at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry's annual dinner in Hershey.

The campaign of Democratic candidate Joe Sestak countered that Toomey's claims were deceptive because he voted for Bush's "reckless" budgets and against sensible "pay-as-you-go" legislation, resulting in huge deficits.

The chamber event had been planned as a debate, but Sestak instead attended a fundraiser in Pittsburgh with Sen. John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has sponsored two television ads in Pennsylvania criticizing Sestak.

On school choice, Toomey advocated a competitive marketplace that allows parents to send their children to private schools using taxpayer money that "follows the student to the school of the choice of the parent."