The Real Budget Action Won't Come Until Tonight

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Yahoo News:

Contrary to popular belief, the real budget action on Wednesday won’t begin until the early evening, when 12 Republican senators are scheduled to arrive at the White House for a private dinner with the president.

By then, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will have released the hundreds of pages of the president’s budget proposal. Congressional Republicans will have united and mobilized to attack it by saying it does not go far enough to tame the long-term debt. And, pundits will have spent hours debating the budget’s overarching themes on the endless loop of cable TV.

Yet this predictable sequence of events is not likely to matter in the coming months. Nor will the president’s actual budget blueprint. Instead, the most important fiscal development of the week will hinge on the success of the president’s dinner with a handful of Republican senators, organized by Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia.

This so-called charm offensive is the key to any budget deal this spring, even a small one, and will determine the Republicans’ receptiveness to the president’s offer in his budget to cut Social Security benefits and slash billions from Medicare. “This is an offer, not a starting point for negotiations,” stressed one senior administration official, roughly 24 hours before the White House was to release its fiscal year 2014 budget.

If Wednesday’s bipartisan dinner goes well, as the last dinner with Republican senators did, then the path to a budget compromise this spring and early summer becomes clear: through the Senate. The White House is slowly trying to woo enough Senate Republicans to move a budget deal through the chamber and then pressure House Republicans to act—similar to the script used during the fiscal-cliff deal.

Already, there are a few, small reasons for optimism. Republican senators seem pleased that the president is willing to cut roughly $230 billion in government benefits, including Social Security, by changing the cost-of-living calculations for benefits. “‘Chained CPI,’ means-testing, and age adjustment, I think, will save these programs from bankruptcy and avoid us becoming Greece,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who attended the previous private dinner with the president.

“In return, I would raise revenue by flattening the tax code, paying down debt, and lowering some rates,” he added.

Republicans also seem open to the president’s broad budget ideas of cutting roughly $400 billion in health care entitlement programs, closing loopholes, and overhauling the corporate tax code in a revenue-neutral way, though the two parties disagree on the details.

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Another dinner with Obama.

[Valin]

Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine Says Obama's Late Budget Submission Shows "Lack Of Concern" (April 10, 2013)

Obama Budget....DOA