Government Shutdown | featured news

A key Republican leader assured Sunday that a congressional supercommittee will reach agreement on $1.5 trillion in cuts in government spending by next month's deadline and avert deep automatic measures.

Workers walk off the job with anger over country's financial crisis.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that puts the government on stable financial footing for six weeks but does nothing to resolve a battle over spending that is likely to flare again.

The legislation will finance the government for the first four days of October, until lawmakers return and can vote on a more ambitious seven-week spending bill.

A last-minute deal reached by Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate diminished the chances of a government shutdown by week's end.

Obama senior adviser David Plouffe accuses 30 Tea Party members in Congress of controlling the debate — whether over deficit reduction, taxes or more immediate items like funding for the government and disaster relief — both set to run out this week.'Fox News Sunday' Transcript: Plouffe Defends Obama's Deficit-Reduction PlanFull Coverage:

Republicans in the House of Representatives regrouped on Friday to approve a must-pass spending bill, but the prospect of a government shutdown loomed as Democrats said it would go nowhere in the Senate.

The U.S. House of Representatives unexpectedly defeated a bill that would fund the federal government past September 30 on Wednesday as dozens of Republicans broke with their party to push for deeper spending cuts.

As late as this morning, it looked like if you had traveled while the Federal Aviation Administration was shut down, there was a good chance that the government owed you a tax refund.

British and Japanese officials warned Sunday of disastrous consequences for the global economy if last-minute talks among lawmakers in Washington failed to agree on raising the U.S. borrowing limit and averting a debt default.