The White House has informed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that it will miss the legal deadline for sending a budget to Congress.
Acting Budget Director Jeff Zients told Ryan in a letter delivered Friday that the budget will not be delivered by Feb. 4, as required by law.
Zients blamed the delay on the late passage of the “fiscal cliff” deal, and wrote that the administration is “working diligently on our budget request.”
Under the law, President Obama must submit a budget by the first Monday in February, but he has met the deadline only once. The annual budget submission is supposed to start a congressional budgeting process, but that has also broken down. The Senate last passed a budget resolution in 2009.
UPDATE: As noted in a comment below, an Administration submitting its budget late is not particularly unusual. The Senate’s failure to even attempt to enact a budget, on the other hand, is more problematic.