Budget Deficit | featured news

Struggling to avert a government shutdown, Republicans and Democrats each said Wednesday the other would be to blame if compromise talks on the budget fail to produce an agreement.

Congress and the White House veered toward a fiscal collision on Tuesday as the Obama administration rejected a short-term House Republican demand to cut $12 billion now in exchange for keeping the government open for one more week. At the same time, the Republicans’ budget chairman set forth a longer-range blueprint defining a new era of profoundly smaller government and steep tax cuts for corporations and individuals.

A Republican plan for the 2012 budget would cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, more than even the president s debt commission proposed, with spending caps as well as changes in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, its principal author said Sunday.

Gov. Jerry Brown plans to hit the road next week, taking his case for more taxes directly to voters following the collapse of budget negotiations in Sacramento this week.

The billions of dollars in cuts to government services signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown address a portion of the estimated $26-billion deficit facing California. Brown is still negotiating with Republicans on a proposal to put tax extensions before voters.Gov.

Officials in Costa Mesa say they are just trying to solve a budget problem, but some see a political motive.

A new estimate predicts the U.S. budget deficit will hit almost $1.5 trillion this year, a stunning new record.

California Governor Jerry Brown will declare a state of fiscal emergency on Thursday for the state's government to press lawmakers to tackle its $25.4 billion budget gap, according to a spokesman.

The State of Illinois is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year. Arizona recently stopped paying for certain organ transplants for people in its Medicaid program. States are releasing prisoners early, more to cut expenses than to reward good behavior. And in Newark, the city laid off 13 percent of its police officers last week.

The federal government recorded a budget deficit of just slightly less than $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2010, the second-worst mark since 1945, the Congressional Budget Office said.