COEUR d'ALENE - Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador doesn't believe his Republican Party's leadership has much leverage going into the next debt-ceiling fight.

Republicans in Congress have used the fights of the past few years to gain concessions from President Barack Obama and Democrats. The federal government is on pace to exhaust its borrowing power by the end of next month, if Congress doesn't act.

The Republican party caucus has a retreat next week, he said, to discuss strategies on issues like the debt ceiling.

"Accepting the (Fiscal Year 2014) Budget Bill meant for Republicans that they were caving on the debt ceiling," Labrador said Thursday in a meeting with The Press' editorial board.

When both houses of Congress passed a 2014 omnibus spending bill, the spending cuts known as the sequester were gutted, he said.

The bill, which Labrador voted against, spends $45 billion more than budget caps established in 2011, with roughly half going to the military, he said.

Admittedly, the sequester was not the best way to cut federal government spending, he said. It was too blunt of an instrument.

"But I think the worst thing to do is to not have the cuts," Labrador said.

He said his party's leadership still thinks concessions are possible. "What they're going to get, if anything, is going to be very minimal," he said.

The upside, for Republicans and Democrats, is that the spending bill gives them all a break from any more budget wars during an election year.

On another topic, Labrador said Congress has not reinstated expired jobless benefits for more than a million Americans who have been out of work for six months or longer. This is good news, he said.

"I think it's a mistake for us to continue to extend unemployment benefits," he said. "It's clearly been shown that when you extend unemployment benefits that you just get more unemployment."

As an illustration of his point, Labrador said he was told by one Boise employer that they couldn't find workers for a simple $12-per-hour job. Applicants only showed up to interviews to maintain unemployment benefits.

"I think these unemployment benefits actually have unintended consequences," he said.

Instead, the focus needs to be on job creation, he said.

Wednesday night, Labrador told an audience at a town hall meeting in Post Falls that the Republican Party must start talking to employees, and not just business owners.

Going further Thursday, he said, "The rich can take care of themselves. They don't need a party representing them."

The rich can afford lobbyists, attorneys, and accountants to represent their interests.

"It's actually the middle class and the poor who suffer," he said.

He believes that under Republican governance, those lower-income groups would prosper, better than they would under Democratic leadership.

He said most citizens will never be business owners, so the party needs to start "articulating a vision" for employees.

"They need to know that we care about them, as well" as business owners, the job creators, he said.

At the same time, he doesn't support an increase in the minimum wage, which he said would be a job-killer.