President Obama and Washington Democrats’ spending binge – which has resulted in the three largest deficits in U.S history and piled more than $5 trillion on to the debt – has eroded economic confidence and added to the massive uncertainty facing private-sector job creators. As part of both the Plan for America’s Job Creators and the Pledge to America, House Republicans have been working to stop Washington from spending money we don’t have in order to boost economic confidence and make it easier for the private sector to create jobs.  Here’s more:

• CUTTING SPENDING BY $5 TRILLION OVER THE NEXT DECADE WITH THE FY 2013 PATH TO PROSPERITY BUDGET:  The FY 2013 Path to Prosperity budget (H. Con. Res. 112) cuts $5 trillion compared to the president’s budget, reduces deficits by $3 trillion over 10 years, and stops tax hikes that economists and an independent report by Ernst & Young say will destroy jobs. The president’s budget, on the other hand, was broadly criticized for spending too much ($47 trillion in 10 years), taxing too much ($1.9 trillion in new tax hikes), borrowing too much ($11 trillion added to the debt) and failing to protect health and retirement security for current and future generations.  Not surprisingly, it was – for the second year in a row – unanimously rejected by the Democratic-led Senate, and received zero votes in the House.  Senate Democrats have failed to pass a budget in more than three years. 
• REPEALING THE $1 TRILLION OBAMACARE LAW: According to the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate, ObamaCare will cost taxpayers $1.17 trillion to implement over the next 10 years. The Republican-led House passed Pledge to America legislation fully repealing ObamaCare (H.R. 2) as one of its earliest actions in the majority, and again voted to fully repeal (H.R. 6079) portions of the law left intact by the Supreme Court decision in June.  All together, the House has voted more than 30 times to repeal, defund and dismantle the law.
• PASSING A CUT, CAP AND BALANCE PLAN TO STOP DEMOCRATS’ SPENDING BINGE:  As part of the Republican jobs plan, the House passed the Cut, Cap and Balance Act (H.R. 2560) that cut $111 billion in spending for FY 2012, included reforms to restrain future spending, including through a Balanced Budget Amendment, and prevented tax hikes on American job creators.  Economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth says the “additional certainty about fiscal policy” that would come from a Balanced Budget Amendment “would make investment and consumption decisions easier, and would facilitate economic growth and job creation.”
• SLASHING CONGRESS’ BUDGET:  Congress kept its Pledge to America to “make Congress do more with less by significantly reducing its budget” – saving taxpayers $35 million annually. 
• PASSING THE LARGEST NON-DEFENSE SPENDING CUT IN AMERICAN HISTORY: After President Obama made clear that he would not sign H.R. 1 into law, the House passed a compromise measure cutting nearly $40 billion in spending – the largest non-defense spending cut since World War II.  The bill represented a $78.5 billion decrease from what President Obama sought in his budget and rejected all of the tax hikes that were being sought by Democrats as an alternative to spending cuts.
• ESTABLISHING THE ‘CUT-MORE-THAN-YOU-HIKE’ PRINCIPLE WITH THE BUDGET CONTROL ACT: When Speaker Boehner laid out the principle that any increase in the debt ceiling must be accompanied by spending cuts and reforms larger than the amount of the debt limit hike, there were plenty of skeptics that called the ‘cut-more-than-you-hike’ standard “impossible” and “out of reach.”  They were proven wrong with House-passage of the Budget Control Act (S. 365), legislation that denied President Obama the $2.4 trillion blank check he was seeking, cut $2.1 trillion in spending over 10 years (exceeding the size of the debt limit hike), and imposed strict spending caps to restrain future spending and bring down the deficit.  
• GOING BEYOND THE BUDGET CONTROL ACT WITH RESPONSIBLE SPENDING CUTS & REFORMS IN THE SEQUESTER REPLACEMENT RECONCILIATION ACT:  House Republicans have passed a plan (H.R. 5652) that replaces devastating defense cuts scheduled to take effect on January 1st with a more responsible approach that implements common-sense reforms and spending reductions.  The House-passed plan not only protects our nation’s defense, but also goes beyond the Budget Control Act to achieve an additional $242.8 billion in savings, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Senate Democrats have offered no plan of their own to replace the arbitrary defense cuts.
• FREEZING SALARIES OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS & FEDERAL BUREAUCRATS:  According to a report in The Hill, “federal workers are compensated 16 percent more than comparable private sector workers on average.” After President Obama proposed widening that gap with a pay raise for federal bureaucrats, the House passed legislation (H.R. 3835) to extend the pay freeze on federal salaries for another year, saving taxpayers $26 billion without impacting military personnel or their families.
• ELIMINATING WASTEFUL & INEFFECTIVE PROGRAMS:  The House passed the HAMP Termination Act (H.R. 839), reducing spending by $1.4 billion over 10 years by canceling a TARP program that former Inspector General Neil Barofsky said was “clearly a failure.” The House voted to save taxpayers $8 billion by shutting down the TARP-funded FHA Refinance Program (H.R. 830), a taxpayer-funded bailout that gives private lenders the ability to dump their mortgage risks onto the backs of taxpayers.  And, the House also voted to save taxpayers $1 billion by ending the Obama administration’s so-called Emergency Mortgage Relief Program (H.R. 836), under which taxpayers lose 98 cents of every dollar spent, and another $1 billion by ending the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (H.R. 861), for which the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Inspector General identified multiple cases of misused funds.