President’s budget coming in late March

President Obama’s delayed budget for next year is now expected to be delivered on March 25.

Congressional sources have been informed by the administration to expect a fiscal 2014 blueprint on that date.

By law, the budget was due Feb. 4, and releasing it March 25 would make it seven weeks late.

Normally, the president’s request is the beginning of the annual budget process and Congress relies on its detailed spending information to come up with its own budget resolution.

This time the order will be reversed. 

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) plans to put out his own budget — one that balances in 10 years — before the new Obama plan arrives. 

That budget is also slated to get a House vote before the House embarks on a two-week Easter recess March 22.

The Senate will be putting together its own budget plan for the first time in four years this month. Under “no budget, no pay” legislation enacted in January, it must pass a budget resolution by April 15 or senators’ pay will be withheld. 

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said the delay to March 25 was outrageous.

“Now, we learn that the President is going to submit his budget plan—which contains his recommendations to Congress, the reason the law requires it to be submitted early in February before our budget work begins—on March 25th. Yet he will be submitting it after the House and Senate have produced a budget proposal and adjourned for Easter. So while the President speaks of his deep concern for American workers and families, he fails to even submit to Congress his financial plan to help those workers and families,” Sessions said in a statement.

“Why then doesn’t the President furlough his entire 500-person staff at the Office of Management and Budget instead of threatening teachers and law enforcement personnel?” he asked.

The Obama budget will also arrive just two days before the government is scheduled to shut down unless a new spending bill is passed.

The president said Friday that he would accept a continuing resolution that keeps $85 billion in sequestration cuts in place to avoid a shutdown fight.

–This report was updated at 3:00 p.m.