“Making a down payment on his vow to go all in for Democrats in 2014,
President Barack Obama is courting well-heeled donors in California on a
two-day fundraising jaunt that requires the president to walk a fine
line: Berate Republicans too much, and Obama could put fragile prospects
for achieving his second-term goals in jeopardy,” the AP writes.

First Read: “If it had its druthers, we’re guessing the White House would have preferred to hold off on some fundraising for a bit. But there’s another reason why Obama agreed to these early funders. The president had his own intra-party politics to worry about which. Some House and Senate Dems are nervous the president is more focused on raising money for Organizing for Action rather than help the party, so this is an attempt to quiet down those critiques. Also, the Obama campaign gave the DCCC and DSCC virtually no financial help in 2012, and the folks on Capitol Hill noticed. Today, Obama remains in California, where he hits two more fundraisers — this time for the Democratic National Committee.”

“My intention here is to try to get as much done with the Republican
Party over the next two years as I can, ’cause we can’t have perpetual
campaigns.”

— President Obama, quoted by Reuters.

President Obama “plans to return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in solidarity with federal workers who are going to be furloughed as part of the budget cutting process known as sequester,” the New York Times reports.

“The voluntary move would be retroactive to March 1 and apply through the rest of the calendar year… The White House came up with the 5 percent figure to approximate the level of automatic spending cuts to non-defense federal agencies that took effect that day.”