GOP Budget chairman open to getting rid of budget caps

House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that he’s open to getting rid of budget ceilings, known as sequestration, in exchange for mandatory spending cuts.

At the 2015 Fiscal Summit hosted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Price was asked to respond to remarks by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) in which he said Congress should get rid of the spending caps.

“The budget caps, as bad as they are, across-the-board reductions is the first modicum of spending restraint in this town in a long time,” Price said. “I’m all in favor of doing away with the budget caps so long as we can do so in a way that’s fiscally responsible from a spending standpoint.”

“If we’re able to find mandatory savings that are real, that aren’t accounting gimmicks, that get us on a better path in order to balance the budget, then we’re all in favor of that,” he added.

{mosads}Price said it “doesn’t make sense at all” to do away with the limits without other spending restraint and discipline because of growing debt and paying interest on that debt.

In recent months, lawmakers have raised the possibility of striking a budget deal similar to the one then-Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) reached in late 2013. The agreement relieved sequestration for two years.

Price voted for the Ryan-Murray deal.

His comments come just a few weeks after the GOP-led Congress adopted a bicameral budget agreement for the first time in a decade.

The blueprint proposed sticking to the spending caps imposed by a 2011 law for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Price and his Senate counterpart, Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), had argued that changing the caps would require changing the law. The budget is merely a resolution and is non-binding and not signed by the president.

President Obama, meanwhile, has expressed his dissatisfaction through issuing veto threats on GOP-sponsored spending bills whose topline levels were determined by the budget.

“I don’t believe that’s responsible,” Price said about the threats.

Price recommended that the White House negotiate with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Asked if the recent Medicare “doc fix” compromise, also known as the SGR repeal, could be a model for another deal on spending, Price said, “I think both of those things — our budget and the SGR repea — has set a much more collegial tone in this town.”