Top House Budget Dem predicts a ‘nonconfrontational’ committee under Dem leadership

The ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Rep. John Yarmuth (Ky.), said he hopes to have a nonconfrontational budget committee when Democrats officially take control of the House in January. 

“I think it’s going to be a very useful, nonconfrontational budget committee over the next couple of years,” Yarmuth, who will likely become chairman of the committee, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti on “Rising.”

Democrats will have subpoena power in the House once the majority takes effect in January, and many Democrats in the lower chamber have vowed to probe Trump and the White House.

However, Yarmuth said he did not anticipate this happening when working with the White House’s Budget Office. 

“[Budget Director] Mick Mulvaney and I are good friends. We get along really well. I don’t think I’ll have to subpoena him to come,” Yarmuth said. “So I don’t anticipate any problem there.” 

“We have very strong disagreements on priorities on the budget. The budget that the president has submitted, the first two years, just dramatic cuts in things like Medicaid and Medicare, and SNAP, and some other things that we think are very important. So we’ll have a debate over priorities and values,” he continued. 

Yarmuth went on to say he hopes to include more oversight on the committee. 

“What we’re going to do on the Budget Committee is kind of reimagine the committee as the oversight committee on the budget, and therefore of the taxpayers. So we’re going to things like hold hearings on immigration and the budget, climate change, and the budget. How many ways does that affect the budget and the deficit? Or where are their opportunities, which we think there are with immigration reform,” he said. 

— Julia Manchester