With Congress gone for a spring break, the White House made sure everyone knew House Republicans had yet to put out a budget resolution, and werent going to before the April 15 deadline to pass one.

Days before they left, President Joe Biden said in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) My hope is that House Republicans can present the American public with your budget plan before Congress leaves for the Easter recess so that we can have an in-depth conversation when you return.

McCarthy, instead of offering up such a resolution, has been demanding the White House come to the budget negotiating table. When McCarthy asked again on Monday, a White House spokesman issued a statement highlighting a report of House Republicans missing the deadline, which is in the 1974 law laying out the federal budget process but has no penalties for tardiness.

President Biden remains eager to negotiate with Speaker McCarthy about budgets. But weeks after the President released his deficit-cutting budget, House Republicans left Washington for a two-week recess without submitting their own, the spokesman said.

In one critics eye, the White House is taking advantage of the ambiguity around the word budget in Washington. What the White House is asking House Republicans to do is provide something far less detailed and useful for negotiations than what the White House put out and much more politically difficult.