Get ready to pick a side and hunker down for a long budget battle in Washington! Now that President Obama has delivered his budget to Capitol Hill, lawmakers will send it to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be "scored" or checked against CBO's budget numbers.
This spring, about the same time we expect to see the CBO score of the president's budget, House Republicans will release their own budget. The two documents will undoubtedly look very different.
Between now and then, lobbyists will be swarming Capitol Hill more hungrily than usual as they work to keep their funding in the budget.
Democrats and Republicans will also be on the move. Liberals will tell members they're cutting too much. Conservatives will tell members to keep trimming until they hit bone.
Republicans, especially freshmen, will also have to deal with another voice: the Tea Party. Many freshmen members won thanks to Tea Party support and they're feeling the heat from activists eager to hold them to their "slash spending," "shrink government"words.
To learn more about what's in President Obama's budget, check out my story that aired on CBN Newswatch Monday.