The Hill News

Republicans are looking toward the State of the Union address for signs of whether they'll be able to work with President Obama over the next two years.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the new House majority leader, said that House Republicans are looking toward the annual address, slated for later this month, too see whether the president will offer an olive branch toward the GOP on spending cuts and other issues.

"I do think that the common ground is in cutting spending," Cantor said Thursday morning on CNN. "And I expect when the president comes to deliver the State of the Union address, for him to lay out some significant spending cuts."

"We are very interested in hearing what he has to say in the next couple weeks, especially in the State of the Union," Cantor said in a separate appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Obama and Cantor spoke over the phone on Tuesday evening, a few after the new Republican House was formally ! sworn into office. Cantor hit the morning talk show circuit on Thursday to discuss that call, and the prospects for the new GOP House. 

The White House has already said to expect a good deal of talk from the president about budgets and spending at the State of the Union, an area of possible compromise with the new GOP House.

Republicans are working toward following through with some of their campaign promises early in the new Congress. The new GOP lawmakers have faced criticism for having backed off a plan to ax $100 billion in spending over the course of the next year, and only cut $50 billion instead.

Republicans would cut as much of the budget in the next fiscal ye! ar as possible, Cantor said. The GOP leader argued that becaus! e half o f the fiscal year will have expired by the time the House takes up a new budget, Republicans' hands were tied.

Cantor promised at least $100 billion in cuts over the course of the next two years, though.

"We're in a situation where we have no budget, and we're going to work hard to bring spending down to '08 levels," he said on ABC. "We are going to accomplish more than $100 billion in cuts over the term of this Congress."