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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2011/may/27/cantor-calls-biden-budget-talks-constructive-nonpo-ar-1069272/

Cantor calls Biden budget talks constructive, nonpolitical

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, said today that he can see more than $1 trillion in savings identified through the Biden Commission talks, which he described as constructive and light on politics.

The twice weekly conversations to find consensus on spending reductions in advance of a vote on whether to increase the nation's debt ceiling – led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. -- have also been wide ranging, Cantor said this morning in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch Editorial Board.

Tax reform, something the House GOP is pushing in the job growth agenda it expanded on this week, is "around the edges."

"And it has not gotten really political in the room yet, that's why these talks I think have been constructive," he said, adding that they've kept tax reform out of the discussion so far, as "some of these tax claims about loopholes and the rest become very politically charged."

Republicans are insisting on spending cuts at least equal to, or greater than, the amount the administration wants to lift the limit.

"We are at the point where I can see well over a trillion dollars in savings," Cantor said. "And we're being asked by the administration, although no specific number's been put on the table, but a couple trillion dollars in increase in the credit limit."

He said House Republicans are pushing for cuts, but also reforms in the way money is spent.

"So whether a deal comes or not is going to be whether we can actually show and demonstrate there's realness to it. Not fake, kick the can, set up a process by which it's going to happen later," he said.

To get there, everything is on the table, including defense spending.

"We sit around this table for two and a half hours two times a week and there's a lot of homework to be done before you go in there because you really are talking about the entire budget," he said, from health care to discretionary spending.

On other matters, Cantor acknowledged the role that the House Republicans' proposed Medicare plan played in this week's New York congressional special election. Republicans lost the seat and Democrats are trying to cast their victory as a referendum on the Republican-proposed changes.

"Yes it had something to do with that election," Cantor said. "Any time we've seen the discussion of entitlements, especially health-care entitlements, in a political environment it is tough. It really is."

He said there was also a "real factor" in the third party candidate, who aligned with the tea party philosophy.

"It is, as they say, the Mediscare tactic, is the easiest for people who are not listening to the complexity of it all to believe because so many are so reliant on the entitlement programs."

He said the problem itself – the health of the program – hasn't been given enough attention. It's discussed in the larger context of a better environment to create jobs, but needs to be discussed in terms of the fiscal state of the government.


Eric D. Schwerin
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