Scott Walker: ‘Bad idea’ if Congress busts budget caps

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Tuesday said it would be a “bad idea” if Congress decides to bust budget caps for the next fiscal year and spend more.

On conservative host Laura Ingraham’s radio show, Walker was asked to react to an article published Tuesday by The Hill about pressure building among Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to lift sequester caps.

“No, I think it’s a bad idea,” said Walker, who is expected to run for president next year.

“I think it’s one of those where, if we’re just a little less bad than the other side, voters are going to vote for people who are unapologetic about big government, and tax and spenders out there, and that’s what you get out of people like Hillary Clinton, the left,” he said.

{mosads}Walker said, after he was elected governor of Wisconsin in 2010, he met with newly elected Republicans in the state legislature to discuss his mission.

“We turned around the big government interests. We got taxes under control; we got spending under control,” he added.

Just a few weeks ago, Walker indicated that, if elected president, he would want to lift the sequestration budget ceiling on the Pentagon.

“I believe ultimately that we’ve got to strengthen the Defense Department,” Walker said in early May. “I’m all for balanced budgets. I’ve done it the last four years consistently, but to me, you don’t cut it. … We’ve gone through the muscle into the bone.”

If a Republican is elected president next year, in conjunction with a GOP-controlled Congress, Washington should work on reforms that would “balance the budget,” Walker said.

“There’s no way you can adequately fund the defense budget in the sequester,” he said, but then added, “We need to rein in spending.”

Republicans in Congress have tended to support discretionary spending cuts while Democrats say increased spending is needed to make investments nationwide. A growing group of lawmakers from both parties, however, are now saying sequestration funding levels that are expected to return in October are too low.

Congress would need to pass a new law in order to ease those ceilings. President Obama has made clear he would only accept sequestration relief if it is applied to both the Pentagon and nondefense domestic programs.