House Republicans draft campaign manifesto

By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans hoping to gain control of the House of Representatives in the November 2 election vow to slash spending and stop "job-killing tax hikes" in a campaign manifesto set to be unveiled on Thursday.

The agenda, a draft of which was obtained by Reuters on Wednesday, proposes scaling back federal spending to 2008 levels, although with large exceptions, and ending government control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In their "Pledge to America," they also vow to repeal President Barack Obama's landmark and unpopular overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system.

"This agenda came from the American people, it came by listening to the American people. It's their agenda," House Republican Leader John Boehner told reporters after privately briefing a meeting of Senate Republicans on it.

While Obama is unlikely to sign many, if any, of the proposed reforms into law, they set markers in what's certain to be a rough and tumble fight if Republicans take the House from his fellow Democrats for the final two years of his term.

A senior Obama aide warned that pulling back on federal spending too soon could harm the recovering economy and rattle financial markets.

"If you try to tighten the belt right now, I think you would spook markets in a substantial way," Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said earlier on Wednesday at the Reuters Washington Summit.

House Democrats blasted the Republican agenda, particularly for promising to permanently extend tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Obama wants to let those tax cuts expire at the end of the year, while extending tax cuts for middle- and low-income people.

"Congressional Republicans are pledging to ... blow a $700 billion hole in the deficit to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires," said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

Boehner and fellow House Republican leaders arranged to privately brief their own members and many quickly embraced it.

The agenda will give give voters "a high level of confidence ... that we will address what needs to be addressed to get our economy back on track," said Republican Representative Candice Miller.

With voters angry at Washington, largely because of a 9.6 percent jobless rate and a record federal deficit, Republicans plan to briefly leave town on Thursday and formally roll out their agenda at a lumberyard and hardware store in Sterling, Virginia.

"It's not Washington, D.C.," Boehner said when asked why he picked the suburban location.

The agenda is reminiscent of "The Contract with America" that House Republicans announced on the steps of the Capitol in 1994, which helped them win control of the House during the second year of the Democrat Bill Clinton's presidency.

The new Republican agenda is the result of an online initiative announced in May to hear suggestions and policy proposals directly from the American people.

Republicans have battled criticism from Democrats that they have become the "party of no" by rejecting Obama's agenda rather than bringing ideas to the table that would help reach a compromise.

Republicans reject such criticism, saying Americans disagree with Obama's agenda.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Eric Walsh)