Spending Cuts | featured news

Well, no one can doubt anymore that Republicans are petrified that the Medicare cuts in Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget might cost them the 26th congressional district in New York, long a safe Republican seat, in the May 24 special election. It’s a classic technique in politics that if your opponent has found an issue that’s working against you, you turn the tables and declare your opponent’s position to be as bad as yours, or worse.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned in a letter to Congress that failure to raise the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling would drive up interest rates, push down household wealth, put more pressure on federal entitlement programs and cause a double-dip recession.

Republicans planned sharp cuts to foreign aid and education on Wednesday, while Democrats weighed a tax hike on millionaires, highlighting the yawning divide between the two parties in the budget debate.

The battle over whether tax increases can be used to cut the nation's debt flared Tuesday as the Senate's Democratic budget writer floated a possible millionaire's surtax to help cut projected deficits over the next decade. But Republican leaders flatly said no to tax increases....

The House speaker takes a hard line on increasing the nation's borrowing limit. A top Democrat says he's 'playing with fire.' House Speaker John A. Boehner said Monday that Republicans wanted trillions in budget cuts in exchange for their vote to increase the nation's borrowing limit and avoid default, adopting a hard line on the party's position in a speech before major players on Wall Street.

With high gas prices and federal deficits in the political spotlight, senior Democrats believe that Senate Republicans will support an idea they otherwise might not like.

President Obama's deficit-reduction plan “falls short” of targets set by House Republicans and Obama's own fiscal commission and would be unlikely to stabilize borrowing, according to a new independent ...

Most Americans oppose the big spending cuts that many in Washington see as necessary to bring down the budget deficit, a new poll suggests, but they do support one idea for deficit reduction that President Barack Obama has pushed for years — raising taxes on the rich.

Federal wildlife officials say they will take more than 1,300 gray wolves in the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list within 60 days. An attachment to the budget bill signed into law Friday by President Barack Obama strips protections from wolves in five Western states.

The Democratic-run US Senate defeated measures approved by the Republican-run House to bar spending government funds for the health-care overhaul law and Planned Parenthood.