Cantor: Obama 'not interested' in private sector job growth

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Monday morning that the House Republican plan to boost job creation through deregulation is needed because the Obama administration has shown it is "not interested" in creating jobs in the private sector.

"I think the administration has … already demonstrated that it is not interested in focusing on private sector growth," Cantor said Monday on Fox News. "The record has been thus far, in this administration, a continued expansion of government, continued grabs at trying to tell people who want to go out and invest and create a profit that maybe they've done so, done enough already, and that we need to take that money and put it elsewhere."

House Republicans today outlined a list of regulatory reforms, most of which are aimed at repealing specific health, environmental and business rules and forcing changes to the way future regulations are developed. That plan will compete in the fall with an administration plan to streamline regulations, one that reflects a completely different set of priorities and one that Cantor has already called "underwhelming."

"What our list demonstrates is: Washington now has gotten in the way, and we've got to make it easier, finally, for small-business people to grow," he said. "And yes, the lists are different because, frankly, there is a divide in Washington about what this country should be."

Cantor said the Republican goal is to stop the federal government from making it too hard on small companies to expand. He cited efforts by the National Labor Relations Board to block Boeing's expansion into South Carolina, and various rules from the Environmental Protection Agency, which he said has "been on a rampage."

He also criticized President Obama for not only supporting these sorts of rules, but for continuing to press for tax hikes.

"Small business people are having trouble accessing capital," Cantor said. "They're having trouble with the added regulations coming in from Washington. They're having trouble when they hear a president who wants to raise taxes at a time when we've got 9 percent unemployment."

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