The Hill News

One House Republican distanced himself from conservatives in his own party on the heels of ads by Democrats targeting him on education spending.

Freshman Rep. Robert Hurt (R-Va.) said he didn't necessarily support all of the cuts proposed by the leadership of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), cuts which formed the basis for an ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) targeting 19 vulnerable GOP lawmakers.

"Because I'm a member of that committee, somehow that means that I want to cut education by 40 percent or something like that?" Hurt told a local ABC affiliate. "I mean, it's just totally made up out of whole cloth. I don't know where its coming from."

Hurt was one of the 19 Republicans against whom the DCCC launched ads this week, which accuse each lawmaker of cutting sp! ending for education, as well as research and investment, by 40 percent.

The ad assumes that Hurt supports the "Spending Reduction Act" proposed by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the conservative RSC. That proposal calls for a series of drastic cuts to discretionary spending that would result in an estimated $2.5 trillion in savings over the next decade.

It's highly unlikely that Jordan's bill will make its way into law, especially with Democrats in control of the Senate and White House. But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had said that he "applauds" the RSC proposal and hopes that it will see an up-or-down vote on the House floor, along with other proposals to cut government.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is on the record as favoring a rollback in spending to 2008 levels, which would save an estimated $50 billion to $60 billion this year. He's also said, though, that there's "no limit" to how much the Republica! n House could cut.