House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested in an interview on Tuesday that President Barack Obama spends more time "filling out his March Madness brackets" than working on the budget.
"How can a president not want to balance the budget? How does he forget what he said? One of his first goals in the first four years was to cut the deficit in half," McCarthy said on Fox News' "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren." "Now he doesn’t care. He doesn’t even produce a budget.”
McCarthy then suggested that the annual NCAA college basketball tournament was more of a priority to Obama.
"I’ll bet you this. I bet you he spends more time filling out his March Madness brackets than he does writing a budget," McCarthy said.
McCarthy said "there's no excuse" why the president hasn't written a budget and inferred that Obama was avoiding it for "political reasons."
During the Gridiron dinner on March 9, Obama poked fun at criticism over how he spends his free time, apparently predicting McCarthy's line of attack. From the Associated Press:
"We face major challenges. March in particular is going to be full of tough decisions. But I want to assure you, I have my top advisers working around the clock. After all, my March Madness bracket isn't going to fill itself out. And don't worry -- there is an entire team in the Situation Room as we speak, planning my next golf outing, right now at this moment."
The GOP budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) drew criticism from the White House on Tuesday. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the GOP budget's "math doesn't add up."
On Tuesday, right after Ryan introduced his budget, Senate Democrats unveiled their own plan, laying the groundwork for future negotiations.
Obama is expected to produce his budget during the week of April 8. In an interview with ABC News that aired on Wednesday, he said he wouldn't "chase a balanced budget just for the sake of balance."
"My goal is how do we grow the economy, put people back to work, and if we do that we are going to be bringing in more revenue,” Obama said.
WATCH CLIP OF MCCARTHY'S COMMENTS ABOVE
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