The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee is floating the idea of getting rid of the Budget panel altogether, according to Republican sources.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) has noted that mounting deficits are making it much tougher to pass a spending blueprint, the sources say.
Enzi’s seemingly radical suggestion comes as a special bipartisan committee prepares to hold its first hearing on reforming the budgetary process, which Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a former House Budget Committee chairman, this weekend called “irreparably broken.”
Enzi said in 2016 that he would be open to scrapping the Budget Committee as part of a larger effort to reform the congressional spending process, a GOP aide explained, adding that the chairman doesn’t plan to shut down his own committee anytime soon.