GOP: Democrats must join us to cut spending

Republicans tapped a freshman House member to promote their party's economic policies as job-creating and to pressure Democrats in joining them in their agenda of large spending cuts and regulatory reductions.

In the GOP's weekly address, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) hammered Democrats for not approving a long-term budget that came out of the GOP-controlled House and defended two short-term budget bills that slashed $10 billion in five weeks, which some criticized as meaningless cuts.

"This is real money, especially when you consider that the president and Democrats in Congress originally suggested that not a single dime in spending cuts would be had," she said. “Of course, if we’re serious about ending the uncertainty for job creators in our economy, we need to cut more."

She also cited a series of bills – the repeal of the healthcare law's 1099 mandate, a measure preventing the EPA from regulating carbon emissions and a bill requiring congressional approval for new federal regulations – as ways that the GOP is working to, "eliminat[e] regulatory barriers to job creation."

Some claimed this week that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was losing control over his conference after 54 of his members – many of them freshman – voted against the second stopgap spending measure to prevent a government shutdown.

Many of the members voted against the proposal, claiming that it did not make deep enough spending cuts. 

Democrats played up that argument this week: Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) multiple times called on Boehner to abandon his "Tea Party freshmen" and cut a deal on spending with Democrats.

But Herrera Beutler chalked up the lack of progress on spending cuts to Democrats and that "the powers-that-be have enlisted an ‘army of lobbyists’ to try and block even the modest efforts to address our $14 trillion debt."

Instead of being divisive, she said, "my Republican colleagues and I have headed back to our districts this week to start a dialogue with the American people about all of these issues. We invite the president and our Democratic colleagues to join us in this dialogue."

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