White House calls for compromise on budget

{mosads}The call comes less than six hours after the Senate narrowly passed its first budget in four years during an all-night “vote-a-rama” session.

“Now it is time for our leaders to come together to find common ground,” said the White House office of the press secretary.

“The president has put a plan on the table that reflects compromise, and he will continue to work with both sides to see if there is an opportunity to reach a solution to our budget challenges. We hope we will find this compromise because that is what the American people expect and what they deserve.”

Obama praised the Democratic bill passed by the upper chamber in a 50-49 vote, saying that, like his proposal, the measure would create jobs, cut the deficit and wasteful spending, strengthen entitlements, and lower the deficit by eliminating tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

In calling for leaders to reach a bipartisan compromise, the White House said it refused to ally itself with the Republican plan, which doesn’t “ask for a single dime of deficit reduction from closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and the well-connected but instead makes deep cuts to education and manufacturing while asking seniors and the middle class to pay more.”

“That’s not an approach we support and it’s not an approach the majority of the American people support,” said the press secretary in the statement.