–But House Majority Leader Says GOP ‘Not Interested’in Stimulus Spend
–Should Focus On Areas of Agreement, ‘Produce Results’
–GOP Wants To Avoid ‘Brinksmanship’ on FY’12 Budget

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Continuing to use conciliatory language, House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that Congress and the White
House should work cooperatively to “produce results” to boost the
economy and create jobs.

At a briefing, Cantor said there are “a number of areas we can work
on together,” to strengthen the U.S. economy.

Cantor said these include small business tax cuts, passage of the
pending bilateral U.S. trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South
Korea, regulatory reform, unemployment insurance reform and the recently
approved patent reform bill.

“We need to address the economy,” he said, adding that Congress and
the White House should “focus on what we can do together.”

“We’re trying to produce results here,” he added.

But Cantor appeared to signal clearly that this cooperation is
unlikely to include President Obama’s proposals to boost spending,
especially for state governments.

“We’ve been there, done that,” he said dismissively of spending
stimulus. Cantor said House Republicans are “not interested” in
supporting a jobs bill that has spending initiatives.

Last week, Obama outlined his new $447 billion jobs package. The
plan has about $245 billion in tax cuts, $140 billion in infrastructure
spending and about $62 billion in assistance for unemployed workers.

In a related matter, Cantor said House Republicans want to work
with the administration on a stop-gap spending bill to fund the
government after Oct. 1 when the 2012 fiscal year begins.

So far, none of the 12 FY’12 spending bills have been passed by
Congress.

Cantor said Republicans are not interested in “brinksmanship” on
the FY’12 discretionary budget, adding that a $1.043 trillion ceiling on
discretionary spending has been agreed to by Congress and the White
House.

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

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