WASHINGTON – Sen. Bernie Sanders tore into President Barack Obama on Thursday, accusing him of cowering to Republican “extremists” and failing to stand up for progressive priorities.

“The Republican House budget is the most radical right-wing extremist budget ever passed in the modern history of our country, and the more the American people learn about it the more they are rejecting it,” the independent from Vermont wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed. “The question is, however: Where are the Democrats? Where is President Obama?”

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“Will the president remain strong in his demand that any deficit reduction agreement include an end to Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy? Will he really fight to eliminate corporate tax loopholes?… Or, as he has done within the last year, will he give Republicans almost everything they want at the expense of ordinary Americans.”

The remarks come amidst a national debate over what spending to cut in order to increase the nation’s $14.3 debt limit, which economists view as necessary to prevent another recession. The White House weeks ago agreed to GOP demands that budget cuts be attached to the debt ceiling increase.

“The deficit also increased as a result of the declining tax revenues during a current recession, caused by the greed and illegal behavior of Wall Street,” Sanders said, calling for higher taxes on the top 2 percent.

The senator demanded “shared sacrifice” from wealthy Americans, lamenting that the United States “now has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country with the top 400 individuals owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million.”