KARE 11 NBC: President Obama to unveil budget plan on Wednesday
MINNEAPOLIS - The third of three federal budgets will be handed in on Wednesday when President Barack Obama releases his federal, fiscal plan.
The Republican-controlled House has already passed a budget and the Democratically-controlled Senate did too. That's the good news. There is bad news as well.
"We see two different philosophies," U.S. Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, told KARE 11 last week.
"Neither side is going away. Maybe it's time to govern," U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, said late last week in Hudson.
Johnson was in Hudson delivering his federal budget power point speech to a packed room of business owners and everyday citizens last week. Franken was in St. Paul talking with college students about the federal budget and the affordability of higher education. Both were quite comfortable in their surroundings; as they've given these presentations dozens of times.
The two men have different opinions on the federal budget fix and their respective political parties aren't even near the same ballpark in terms of taxing and spending.
"You have to agree on figures and we're not even quite there yet and you also have to raise your hand and admit you have a problem and we're not quite there yet," Johnson said.
"I don't know how we're going to bridge those differences. I'd like to, but I don't know how to do it," Sen. Franken remarked.
Members of Congress have until Oct. 1 to come up with what's being called the "grand bargain." Otherwise they'll try to come up with yet another continuing resolution that keeps the government operating in the short term.
The President has already promised his plan will have parts that Republicans and Democrats won't like.
The two chambers and the two parties will take the President's wish list and go back to budget battling.
"I'm not terribly optimistic. I'd like to be optimistic, but I'm not," Franken concluded.
"I've been there (in the Senate) for two years and haven't been particularly optimistic over the two years, but you know, I'm sensing maybe a little bit of a braking of the log jam," Johnson said.
