Yesterday I had a chance to sit down with the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein to talk about what Democratic governors are doing to support job creation and prepare us for the new economy.

While Democratic governors are balancing budgets, reducing spending, and moving forward at the same time, Washington Republicans are playing cynical political games and putting our jobs recovery at risk in order to deny President Obama a second term.

It’s as if they forgot what got us into this mess in the first place: deficit spending under President Bush to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and two wars. Governors know how to balance budgets and pay our bills, but we also know that we can’t sacrifice the jobs recovery to close the Bush deficit.

Read the article below and let me know what you think on Twitter @DemGovs or on Facebook.

Jobs. Opportunity. Now.,

Martin O’Malley

Chair, Democratic Governors Association

Huffington Post’s Sam Stein: DGA Chair Martin O’Malley: GOP Risking National Default To Deny Obama Second Term

WASHINGTON — With states and cities already suffering the consequences of the nation creeping toward hitting the legal debt limit, one Democratic governor is accusing Republicans of bringing the government to default in an effort to kill President Obama’s reelection chances.

Democratic Governors Association Chairman Martin O’Malley (D-Md.) took several sharp swipes at congressional Republicans on Tuesday during a sit-down interview with The Huffington Post. The topics covered ranged from tax cuts to deficit reduction, but the gist of each was the same: O’Malley said the GOP was willing to derail the country’s economic recovery so long as it gave Republicans a gateway to the White House.

“[T]he new breed that is leading the Republican Congress have, I think, nothing but a short-term goal in mind. And that is to keep the president from winning a second term,” said O’Malley, who had come to Washington D.C. for a round of media interviews. “They accomplish that one way and one way only and that is to stop the jobs recovery — to put a halt to the jobs recovery — and, if possible, to reverse the jobs recovery.”

“They have two means for accomplishing that one goal,” O’Malley said. “One is with deep, debilitating and crippling cuts to that common endeavor of ours known as the public sector. The other way is to force the United States needlessly into a default position — either of which would do such damage to job creation, consumer confidence and investor confidence that they would accomplish their goal of halting the jobs recovery in order to keep the president from getting reelected.”

“I think it is politics masquerading as fiscal responsibility,” O’Malley added. “Where were these sanctimonious Tea Party-ing republican congressmen when George Bush was charging a series of desert wars to our children’s credit cards? Where were these sanctimonious, antique FDR haters when George Bush was running up the biggest deficit of all time?”

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/11/dga-chair-omalley-gop-debt-ceiling_n_860741.html