Cantor to reposition GOP beyond debt talk

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will urge Republicans to stop fussing about federal spending cuts and start talking about helping U.S. families, an aide says.

The change to a softer tack, following big GOP election losses in November, is to begin Tuesday in a policy speech the Virginia Republican is to make to the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, the aide told The Wall Street Journal.

Cantor plans to tell the 75-year-old, limited-government group about a range of areas where the federal government can help Americans, the aide said.

These range from education to medical research to job training, as well as an overhaul of the tax code, and would be framed in a way to show how Republican ideas can benefit families across the nation, the aide told the newspaper.

He plans to point to existing and new GOP policies Republicans can use to argue their ideas are better than those of the Democrats, the aide said.

Some of the points are expected to include private-school vouchers for underprivileged children, healthcare options beyond President Barack Obama's healthcare reform, workforce training initiatives, and a new push for science, technology and engineering visas for would-be immigrants, The New York Times said.

The speech's theme will be that deficit-reduction talk should be complemented with ways the party can make government work better, the aide told the Journal.

Public opinion polls generally suggest Americans blame Republicans for the fiscal crises that have consumed Washington the past two years.

The speech would, in effect, be an acknowledgment the GOP must change its messaging and its actions, the Journal said.

Republicans significantly trail Democrats in appealing to women, young people and minorities.