The partial federal government shutdown might be behind us, but Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute reminds National Review Online readers that another federal budget battle lies ahead in the not-too-distant future.

The latest continuing resolution will expire on January 15, while we will hit our debt ceiling again on February 7. In the meantime, a budget conference committee, headed by Representative Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Senator Patty Murray (D., Wash.), is supposed to reach an agreement by December 13. …

… Republicans may be divided and demoralized right now, but they cannot afford to throw in the budgetary towel. As the debate moves forward, Republicans must hold the line in several key areas.

Save the sequester: The Democrats’ reverence for “settled law” evaporates when it comes to the sequester, a law duly passed by bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress and signed by the president. Repealing the sequester’s mandated spending cuts is likely to be the Democrats’ No. 1 priority in budget negotiations. Already, Obama has promised to “keep fighting to get rid of” the law, saying it’s “hurting our military and our economy.” …

… Hold the line on taxes: Already the president is back to talking about the need to include additional revenues in any budget agreement, a so-called balanced deal that, for instance, “closes corporate tax loopholes that don’t help create jobs.”

It should be recalled that the president got a ten-year, $617 billion tax increase as part of last January’s fiscal-cliff deal and that Obamacare includes $1.2 trillion in new taxes over the next ten years. That’s a total of $1.8 trillion in taxes he’s already won.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that revenue will reach 18.6 percent of GDP by 2015, the highest level since 2001 and slightly above the post-war average. Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. …

… Start reforming entitlements: The driving force behind future deficits and debt is not federal funding of Planned Parenthood, foreign aid, or the cost of Obamaphones but the skyrocketing growth in entitlement spending, notably Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. (Obamacare too, but that fight will have to wait for another day.) In fact, all domestic discretionary spending – everything from the Department of Education to the Department of Commerce, the FBI to the FDA — will account for just 24 percent of federal spending by 2023, the lowest share since 1962. On the other hand, entitlements will consume roughly 54 percent of the federal budget.