Dem Hoyer echoes GOP’s message, says states shouldn’t expect a bailout

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday echoed a warning from Republican leaders, agreeing that states shouldn’t expect a bailout from Washington to help them deal with their budget woes. 

“We did that in the last couple of years, [but] we can’t continue to do that,” Hoyer said of the state bailouts. “The states have a responsibility themselves to determine how they can best manage their finances within the constitutional constraints they face.”

On Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that states struggling with budget troubles shouldn’t expect any bailouts from Washington now that Republicans control the House — a message Hoyer conceded is the new reality.

“I don’t think you’re going to see substantial additional assistance to the states in this Congress,” Hoyer said.

The state support championed by the Democrats over the past two years “was appropriate,” Hoyer said, “but now …  we’ve been out of this recession, according to economists, for some time now. And while employment is not responding as rapidly as we would like … I think that we’re going to be focusing very much on how we’re going to balance our budget and invest in growth.” 

Hoyer also went on the attack against Republican leaders Tuesday, accusing them of frittering away their first weeks in the majority on issues unrelated to job creation.

The Maryland Democrat said the GOP’s legislative priorities have contradicted the Republicans’ campaign-trail promises and ignored the message sent by voters who swept the Republicans to power in November’s midterms.  

“What the American public voted for last year was for us to focus on jobs and the economy and reducing the deficit,” Hoyer told reporters at the Capitol. “Nothing that we have done this month speaks to job creation or growing the economy. Nothing this week will speak to that.”

Since taking control of the House, GOP leaders have passed legislation to cut spending by congressional offices and curtail printing costs by eliminating hard copies of bills. They also passed legislation to repeal the Democrats’ healthcare reform law. 

On Tuesday, the House also passed a Republican resolution to cut all non-security spending to 2008 levels or lower.

“We have not dealt with the major issue [for] which the American public voted: jobs and growing the economy,” Hoyer charged.

The remarks highlight the philosophical differences between each party on the government’s role in addressing the nation’s troubling unemployment rate, which remains above 9 percent more than 20 months after the recession officially ended. 

Democrats have focused their efforts on helping states, the unemployed and small businesses weather the tough economy through a series of spending increases and tax cuts. Republicans, meanwhile, maintain that high levels of federal spending crowd out innovation and job creation in the private sector. They’re concentrating their stimulus efforts on trimming the federal government.

“We have got to cut spending because that has been shown to be the largest impediment in the way of job creators out there,” Cantor told reporters Tuesday. “We need to pull government back.”

Hoyer said Democrats will introduce legislation “in the near future” designed to spur domestic investment while discouraging the outsourcing of jobs, the so-called “Made in America” agenda the party is pushing hard this Congress.

Hoyer said he expects President Obama to use Tuesday night’s much-anticipated State of the Union address to focus on the broad themes of job creation, deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility. But he doesn’t anticipate many specific legislative proposals, which will be defined in detail when the White House releases its budget blueprint for fiscal 2012 next month.

“I don’t expect the president to do that, nor do I think it’s incumbent upon him to do that in this speech,” Hoyer said of specific proposals. “He needs to highlight in general terms where he wants to go [and] where he thinks our nation is.”

Hoyer also warned that there’s “no doubt” the tax-cut deal negotiated last month by the White House and Senate Republicans will exacerbate the nation’s enormous debt.

“It was a compromise that was positive for the economy, but it was not without cost,” Hoyer said. “On balance it was a good agreement, but it did make the budget deficit numbers a lot worse.”

Hoyer said he expects to sit next to Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during the State of the Union, but emphasized also that the seating arrangement has yet to be finalized.