Tea Party Freshman Defends House Spending Bill

Freshman Congressman Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) says he was "sent to Washington to restrain spending and assert fiscal discipline and get the economy moving in the right direction."

Guinta is one of many Republican freshmen who were ushered into Congress last fall with help from the Tea Party, which counts among its principles reigning in government spending.

The Congressman, who campaigned on trimming the budget, has become a player in the budget battle debate because he's a member of the House Budget Committee. And now that he's in Washington, Guinta says there are several big issues to contend with, including the Continuing Resolution.

The House passed its spending bill last week, which is widely acknowledged to have little chance of passing in the Senate. Guinta conceded the House bill "doesn't have a lot of hope by most accounts of making progress, or of even getting to the floor in the Senate" but insisted the bill is more than just "symbolic."

It is Guinta's hope the Senate works with the House in "trying to reduce the size and scope of government."

The Congressman has been focusing "a lot of his time on trying to figure out if we can get an agreement together to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year" which ends in September.

The continuing resolution currently keeping the government running expires on Friday.