Cantor: Job-creation mindset is missing in Washington

The second-ranking House Republican will say Monday that his party plans to turn Congress into a factory of ideas on job creation.

“I am worried that [a] gut sense of entrepreneurialism is missing from the policy-making debate in Washington, both in the Congress and in the White House,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) will say in what his office is billing as a major address. “Not enough people are coming to work every day looking at their jobs through the prism of helping small-business people and entrepreneurs flourish across America.”

{mosads}Congressional Republicans are taking a series of actions in order to reclaim the upper hand against Democrats in the war of words over job creation, which polls consistently show is the most important issue for the American people.

Cantor is scheduled to announce a GOP “pro-growth economic plan” on Monday at the right-leaning Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Cantor’s speech will follow up on a House Republican-led job creation forum Wednesday that featured lawmakers, business owners and executives. A day before that, GOP leaders released a report that argued their so-called “cut and grow” strategy will help give a jolt to the economy, which is still saddled with high unemployment.

Cantor will outline the specifics of that “cut and grow” plan, according to excerpts of his speech obtained by The Hill. He will explain that the aim of the GOP’s push for deep federal spending cuts is to jump-start job creation.

“We know that we have to stop spending money we don’t have and managing the money we do spend more wisely. The American people are tightening their belts and Washington should, too,” Cantor will say. “We must act now to reduce government spending and restore some sanity to the balance sheet in Washington so that small-business people and entrepreneurs can once again flourish across this country.”

The new messaging echoes President Obama, who has said that innovation is the key to rebuilding the U.S. economy.

“We need to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world,” Obama said in his State of the Union address. “We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper.”

The Republicans’ renewed messaging focus on jobs comes as Democrats have looked to turn the tables on the GOP, which hammered them over the slow pace of job growth during the two years Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House.

Last year, then-House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) repeatedly asked “where are the jobs?” while attacking Democrats over the healthcare reform law and other large-scale legislation enacted under their leadership. 

The strategy was effective: The GOP won control of the House and shrunk the Democrats’ majority in the Senate in midterm elections.

But as the debate over the federal budget has taken precedence on Capitol Hill. Democratic leaders have painted the Republicans’ desire to slash spending as separate from promoting job growth. Many Democrats, backed by several economic studies, have said spending cuts will have a negative effect on jobs and the economy.

“We are in the 11th week of the Republican majority in the Congress, and we have not seen one bill that will create jobs,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor this week. “The only legislation that has come to the floor to create jobs would be the Democratic initiatives.”

Pelosi last month even coined her own version of Boehner’s “Where are the jobs?” mantra, when she said, “Democrats are saying ‘no’ to the Republican majority. We are saying, ‘Show us the jobs.’ “

Democrats have not only taken aim at spending and budget items, but at other GOP bills they say show Republicans are ignoring job creation in favor of a conservative social agenda.

Party members have cited GOP-backed bills that defund National Public Radio and prevent federal funding for groups that provide abortions as evidence for their claim.

“Republicans want more than spending cuts; they want to impose their entire social agenda on the back of a must-pass budget,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is in charge of his caucus’s messaging, said in a floor speech this week. “Those on the right are entitled to their policy positions, but there is a time and a place to debate these issues, and Mr. President, this ain’t it.”

In response, the GOP has begun to frame its spending cuts as part of its overall jobs agenda.

The party’s weekly radio address references a series of bills — the repeal of the healthcare law’s 1099 mandate, a measure preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon emissions, and a bill requiring congressional approval for new federal regulations — as ways the GOP is working to eliminate “regulatory barriers to job creation.”