“On Thursday, President Obama took to the White House podium to triumphantly announce the end of the government shutdown. In doing so, he proclaimed that he wanted to push forward with other legislative priorities, including a budget”
Obama is not looking for a budget deal. He already got what he wanted. He’s been given permission for NO NATIONAL DEBT LIMIT until Feb 7th. No matter how much the deficit and the borrowing grows between now and then, he will, as he has done EVERY YEAR - NOT NEGOTIATE, never agree to a compromsie on HIS spending, wait and create another 11th hour crisis, with the simple phony threat - default looms, and his demand to resolve it - raise the debt limit or again have no debt limit.
When Obama says: “[I]n the coming days and weeks, we should sit down and pursue a balanced approach to a responsible budget, a budget that grows our economy faster and shrinks our long-term deficits further,”, you can translate that as a budget approach that grows the taxes to match his spending - period. AND when he says “shrinks our long term deficits further it is NOT about the revenue side, which is growing in the current tax regime, but that it - revenue - will never grow Obama enough to match the kind of spending his plans and programs are increasing federal expenses to.
Exactly. Obama has removed the debt limit ceiling as a power of Congress. He knows that Congress will always fold and increase the limit. There is no need to compromise or concede anything.