House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is not anticipating another partial government shutdown next year, he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Parts of the government were shuttered from October 1-16 after congressional lawmakers were unable to agree on a funding plan for the new fiscal year.
Here's what the Times-Dispatch's Bob Rayner wrote Sunday after the Virginia Republican visited the paper's editorial staff last week:
" He (Cantor) also said that he does not expect a 2014 repeat of this year’s partial government shutdown. He is not optimistic about reaching a grand bargain on the federal budget, in part because of Democrats’ insistence on more tax increases, but he is hopeful that a deal can be struck to lift some of the sequester cuts, especially those hitting the Pentagon, in exchange for an equal amount of longer-term savings in areas such as six-day postal service and federal employee benefits."
Budget negotiators have until December 13 to craft a deal. The government's funding runs through January 15.
Cantor also discussed his hopes for the Republican party, and contrasted the party's philosophy with that of President Barack Obama.
“We’re about individual empowerment. Everyone needs a fair shot," he told the Times-Dispatch, while Obama is “all about people having a fair share.”
Here's more from Rayner's Times-Dispatch piece:
"That’s one of those nuanced differences. Cantor’s fair shot suggests people striving to move ahead. Obama’s fair share implies people waiting for what’s handed to them.
" That difference may provide an opening for Republicans as Obama’s big-government agenda appears to sink beneath the Affordable Care Act’s irresponsible promises and the relentlessly sluggish American economy.
" Cantor said one of his priorities will be incremental improvements in the country’s broken immigration system, beginning with the Kids Act, which would create a path to citizenship for people who were brought to the United States illegally when they were children. “We should not be holding kids liable for the acts of their parents.”