Former Rep. Landry: Obama Budget Plan Doesn’t Cut Government Enough

Former Louisiana Rep. Jeff Landry tells Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview that “it’s time for the president and Democrats to live up to their side of the bargain, to their side of the compromise and start limiting the size of the government.”

And President Barack Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget he proposed on Wednesday won’t do that, Landry says.

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The president’s plan for fiscal 2014 would limit tax deductions for top earners, increase the estate tax, raise taxes for many lower-income households — and even lift taxes on tobacco.

“I don’t believe we need any more taxes,” says Landry, who served one term before losing his GOP seat last year to redistricting. “We need to curtail the size of government. That seems to be a common thread among a majority of Americans out there that understand that we have to limit the size and scope of our government.

“The president is coming out there and trying to say, well, I’m forging a compromise because he’s dealing with entitlements while, at the same time, asking for money tax increases,” Landry adds. “But my message to him is that, Mr. President, you got your tax increases in January; now it’s time to cut the size of government.”

Landry, 42, now is focusing on Restore Our Republic, the super PAC he recently founded. The group seeks to back hard-right conservatives in Congress.

He is working with GOP strategist Nachama Soloveichik, who has served as a senior aide for Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey and is a former spokesperson for the conservative Club for Growth.

“Our mission would be to protect, preserve, and then expand the conservative majority inside the Republican Party in the House of Representatives,” Landry tells Newsmax. “I know it sounds odd, because if you’re a Republican, you should be conservative — but it’s not what we’ve seen over the last couple of decades.”

Restore Our Republic has not endorsed any candidates yet, but Landry said the group would target lawmakers who were not conservative enough, or those who opposed other national Republicans in open-seat primary elections.

“Conservatives, sometimes, catch a tremendous about of flak from inside the Beltway — and those groups can exert extreme pressure on those conservative members to try to get them to vote in ways that are opposite of their core fundamental beliefs and the promises that they made to their constituents back in their districts,” Landry says.

“It’s basically a vehicle by which people outside the Beltway can participate in helping those members who are inside Congress right now to relieve that pressure and then know that there’s someone who’s going to come to their aid when groups try to get them to vote outside their conservative principles.”

And, Landry is not ruling out a future run for office — including the Louisiana Senate next year.

“That would be unwise of any person to do,” he says. “We don’t know what 2014 is going to look like. But, right now, I’m concentrating on getting this super PAC up and running.”