–Outgoing House Speaker: Dems Will Focus On ‘Putting Jobs First’
–Rep. Pelosi: Repeal Of Health Care Would Do ‘Violence’ To Deficit Cuts
–Rep. Hoyer: Voters Want Job Creation, Deficit Reduction

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday
that House Democrats will press initiatives in the next Congress that
focus on job growth and budget deficit reduction.

At a briefing, Pelosi said House Democrats will be a “willing
partner” with the majority Republicans when the GOP is pressing policies
to spur the economy and cut the deficit.

But Pelosi said the plans that House Republicans are proposing
would worsen the deficit.

She said that repeal of the new health care law would wipe out the
law’s projected budget savings of about $1 trillion over 20 years.

Pelosi said the repeal of health care reform would do “serious
violence” to deficit reduction and would end needed reforms of badly
flawed system.

Pelosi said GOP plans to cut deeply into domestic programs to
secure as much as $100 billion in savings would be a “false economy”
that would hurt the nation in the long-term.

The new Congress will convene Wednesday with a Democratic majority
continuing in the Senate and a new Republican majority in the House.

Rep. John Boehner, a Republican, will become the new House Speaker.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, will retain his position
as the Senate’s leader.

Pelosi will serve as the House Minority Leader.

Pelosi said that the Democratic majority in the House over the last
several years passed a number of job promoting bills that “were held up
by Republicans in the Senate.

“We have no regrets” about the policies that House Democrats pushed
in the 111th Congress, Pelosi said.

Outgoing House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said voters expressed
“two compelling messages” in the mid-term elections in November: the
desire for economic growth and job creation and the need to cut the
budget deficit.

House Republican leaders have said the House will vote next week to
repeal the new health care law.

Democratic leaders in the Senate have pledged to kill that bill in
the Senate if it passes the House. Additionally, President Obama would
almost certainly veto a bill that kills a law he spent more than a year
tightly focused on.

The first week of a new Congress is largely ceremonial. The House
and Senate will take up rules for each chamber on Wednesday.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

[TOPICS: M$U$$$,MFU$$$,MCU$$$]