Senate Republicans are sending a letter Monday to the White House budget office arguing that President Obama's nominee to be treasury secretary, Jacob "Jack" Lew, was complicit in breaking a Medicare budget law.
Congress' chief scorekeeper says President Obama's budget never achieves primary balance, the key measure the White House said would show the country is living within its means.
As prospects for a government shutdown grow, the Obama White House has been largely absent from the political debate, issuing a veto threat to try on the Republicans' spending-cuts bill but declining to offer publicly a counteroffer on what President Obama would be willing to accept.
A year ago, President Obama left a gaping hole in his budget, but promised that his deficit commission would fix it. On Monday, he released his new budget and the hole remains, though this time he dropped the semblance of a fix and instead accepted that his budget shows deficits for the foreseeable future.
Jacob "Jack" Lew, President Obama's nominee to oversee the federal budget, is defending his nearly $1 million bonus from Citigroup last year even as his former employer took a massive taxpayer bailout.
