GOP: Obama's higher taxes to ruin economy

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- President Obama's insistence on higher taxes is threatening to put the U.S. economy in a tailspin, a Republican senator charged Saturday.

Delivering the GOP's weekly media address, Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota spoke less than a week before mandatory across-the-board cuts for all federal agencies are set to begin.

Hoeven said congressional Republicans were ready to "provide the flexibility" to make the needed spending cuts and avoid sequestration, The Hill reported.

Republicans in the House have passed two bills that would avoid the sequester, he said. However, the president has refused to agree to the House proposals "because he wants higher taxes."

Creating jobs and expanding the tax base, not higher taxes and spending controls, were the right way to deal with the deficit, Hoeven said, but he said Obama was blocking economic growth with "more regulation, red tape, and bureaucracy."

The former North Dakota governor also slammed the president for failing to approve the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil a day from Canada to refineries in the southern United States, as well as 100,000 barrels a day from Montana and North Dakota.