Budget chairman floats plan to eliminate his own committee

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.