Obama wants to separate next budget fight from sequestration

In Friday's press conference, President Obama strongly suggested that avoiding a government shutdown and resolving the sequester should remain separate issues, and that Congress needs to stick to the deal they made with him in the Budget Control Act:

We have a Budget Control Act, right?  We agreed to a certain amount of money that was going to be spent each year, and certain funding levels for our military, our education system, and so forth.  If we stick to that deal, then I will be supportive of us sticking to that deal.  It's a deal that I made.

The sequester are additional cuts on top of that.  And by law, until Congress takes the sequester away, we'd have to abide by those additional cuts.  But there's no reason why we should have another crisis by shutting the government down in addition to these arbitrary spending cuts. [...]

[...] But I think it's fair to say that I made a deal for a certain budget, certain numbers.  There's no reason why that deal needs to be reopened. It was a deal that Speaker Boehner made as well, and all the leadership made. And if the bill that arrives on my desk is reflective of the commitments that we've previously made, then obviously I would sign it because I want to make sure that we keep on doing what we need to do for the American people.

In other words, if Republicans try to somehow impose the sequester cuts in the continuing resolution Boehner says he will push for next week, he risks forcing a government shutdown, because Obama would not accept those cuts. On other hand, if the continuing resolution reflects the agreement already made, the government won't shut down, and the sequestration tussle will continue.