Deficit | featured news

Many Americans applauded the spending plans and tax breaks set out in President Barack Obama's record budget, while others questioned the yawning deficit it would entail.

President Obama is reaching across party lines Monday to host a bipartisan "fiscal responsibility summit" as the government tackles the seemingly contradictory tasks of controlling a soaring federal deficit while spending the country's way out of a deep recession.

Its deficits ballooning and its lawmakers intransigent, California appears to be headed off the fiscal rails.