Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) differed from the Obama administration Tuesday, saying he would be open to changing the structure of the automatic spending cuts triggered by the deficit-reduction supercommittee's failure.
Clyburn said he would make changes in exchange for support to extend the payroll tax cuts.
"I don't think we're locked into sequester in its current format. ... I don't think that we should close out negotiating or trying to reach a compromise on anything. That is how our government has operated the past. That's how our country has gotten to be what it is," Clyburn said on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" Tuesday.
"It won't be the first time that I've been at odds with the White House," he added. "But I will say this: I believe that when you're trying to legislate, you try to create an environment within which you solve problems."
Senate Democrats on Tuesday released a bill to extend and expand the payroll tax cut that is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. However, many top Republicans are opposed to extending the tax break.
Clyburn was a member of the deficit-reduction supercommittee that failed to reach an agreement last week.
The 12-member committee's failure to agree on deficit cuts will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to defense spending, Medicare and other programs in 2013.
Top Republicans have said they will attempt to void the defense cuts.
"I think there's a broad consensus that too much of the cuts are weighted on [our national defense]," said fellow supercommittee member Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on ABC's "This Week With Christiane Amanpour" Sunday.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that President Obama believes the automatic triggers should remain in place.
"Changing it is undoing it. The whole purpose of the design of the sequester was to make it so onerous for everybody that it would never come to pass. To change it so that it's not so onerous only relieves pressure on Congress. And obviously Congress needs an immense amount of pressure to get positive things done," Carney said.
Obama said last week he would veto any attempt to circumvent the automatic cuts.
But Clyburn believes that there is room for a compromise on defense cuts that could help Democrats secure an extension of the payroll tax holiday.
"I think we ought to all sit down and find out a way we don't raise taxes on middle income people, that working people continue to be a part of this governmental process; and if [that] calls for redoing the sequester, that's something we might ought to look at," Clyburn said.
"There are times that when we do things legislatively, it may not square up with an administrative way to do it, but that doesn't mean that we ought not try to find a way," he said.
