BOISE - First-term U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador said he and his freshman Republican comrades passed their first big test last week by helping dump funding for a supersonic jet engine that had become a symbol of provincial politics leading to bloated federal budgets.

Now, Labrador thinks a looming budget showdown that threatens to shutter the federal government on March 4 will add to Americans' discontent with Democrats - and help give Republicans control of the U.S. Senate come 2012.

Last Wednesday, he and 46 others from the House's 87-member GOP Class of 2010 helped shoot down a controversial second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was being made by General Electric Co. and Rolls Royce.

The House just last spring had approved the engine's funding, but the newcomers like Labrador this time around provided the margin for victory in last Wednesday's 233-198 vote.

The way the 43-year-old Republican from Eagle tells it, that vote shows how many of these GOP freshmen will target even cherished defense programs to get spending under control.

"We made up our minds," Labrador told The Associated Press. "It wasn't necessary."

They weren't alone in the vote, with 123 Democrats joining a total of 110 Republicans who voted to ditch the engine, at the urging of President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to kill the program's next $450 million installment they thought was a waste of money.

Still, Labrador said his two months in Washington, D.C. have made him more optimistic that his chamber's newfound attitude of austerity will make sure no stone goes unturned - not even sacred cows like the military's budget - when it comes to finding ways to shrink a $1.3 trillion 2011 budget deficit or the national debt that now tops $14 trillion.

"Most of us who went back there ... were willing to make the tough choices we need to make as a nation, even if it hurts us," said Labrador, who ousted Democrat Walt Minnick in November.

"I actually don't think it's going to hurt us," he added. "I think the American people are going to respond positively to it. But even if it does hurt me in my re-election process, I'm still going to do the right things. And we have 87 other people who feel the same way, plus all of the other people who were already there, looking for a moment like this."

Even House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, whose district includes a GE plant near Cincinnati where 1,000 workers are making the second F-35 engine, couldn't save the program from the House's nascent spendthrifts, Labrador said.

"To his credit, he didn't twist anybody's arm," Labrador said, of his leaders' role in the debate.

The move to eliminate the F-35 engine funding comes in addition to about $61 billion in cuts that House Republicans like Labrador aim to make to President Obama's proposed $1.3 billion omnibus spending bill for the rest of 2011.

However, the GOP-led vote on those spending cuts last week for domestic programs like education aid, nutrition and farm programs has set up a showdown with Obama and Senate Democrats. They instead want to freeze non-security spending at current levels for five years, something Labrador says is unacceptable because it locks in spending hikes of the last two years.

If nobody budges before March 4, a partial federal government shutdown could happen like it did in 1995 and 1996, when Congress failed to fund the government for a full fiscal year, so agencies depended on a series of "continuing resolutions" to keep them in businesses while lawmakers feuded.

Shutting down government is politically dicey, with Republicans getting much of the blame 15 years ago. Many believe it paved the way for President Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election.

This time, Labrador anticipates that Senate and House leaders over the next week will work out a short-term budget agreement with some cuts that prevents a shutdown, followed by negotiations between the respective parties in Congress and the White House over how to address spending levels for the rest of 2011.

Though Labrador concedes the House won't get everything it wants, he thinks Americans will blame Democrats who control the Senate for standing in the way of necessary spending reforms, something that could help his party in the 2012 elections.

"What the America people want to see is that we keep our promises in the House," Labrador said. "And if we keep our promises, they're going to give us a Senate we can work with."