Sen.-elect Pat Toomey said Thursday that Congress should extend unemployment benefits but must pay for them by cutting money elsewhere.

With Republicans about to take control of the U.S. House and six more seats in the Senate, policy debates in Washington are shifting from government stimulus to government austerity. Incoming House Speaker John Boehner has turned to conservative economists for policy advice, including Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

“We are running really a staggering deficit, and a federal government that’s spending too much money, running too big a deficit, actually prevents us from creating the kind of jobs that we need so badly,” Toomey, R-Lehigh County, said during a visit to Pittsburgh.