Gung-Ho for Big Cuts in Spending, Less Fond of the Ones That Hurt Back Home

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
NYT

WASHINGTON — As a candidate, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler denounced stimulus spending and, once elected, voted for a Republican budget bill that would make $61 billion in cuts to a vast array of programs this year.

Government overspending is out of control, she said recently in the weekly Republican address, and must be stopped. But perhaps not in her home state, Washington.

There, the Port of Vancouver had been waiting for a $10 million grant, one modeled on a popular program in the stimulus bill. But the money was rescinded in the Republican spending bill, known as H.R. 1, that passed the House in February but was later defeated in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Port officials appealed to Ms. Herrera Beutler, one of 87 freshman Republicans in the House. She agreed to work on the port’s behalf to make sure it got its money before any cuts to the grant program went into effect. The outcome remains unknown.

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