U.s. Debt Limit | featured news

The president is the most visible symbol of what voters see as a badly dysfunctional government. Some Democrats say he could have negotiated better. Though he succeeded in staving off a historic default, President Obama emerges from the debt talks in a weakened political position with limited influence over a divided Congress.

The United States had its triple-A rating confirmed by two key ratings agencies on Tuesday after Washington struck a last-minute deal to avoid a debt default, but threats of future downgrades remain.

The Senate gave final approval Tuesday to legislation to raise the nation's debt limit by $2.4 trillion while cutting federal deficits, sending President Obama a hard-fought bipartisan package he was expected to swiftly sign into law.

Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday the agreement to raise the borrowing capacity of the United States means the risk of a sovereign default is "extremely low" and commensurate with a AAA rating.

The story is that as Mark Twain and novelist William Dean Howells stepped outside one morning, a downpour began and Howells asked Twain, “Do you think it will stop?” Twain answered, “It always has.” The debt-ceiling impasse has, as things generally do, ended, and a post-mortem validates conservatives’ portrayal of Barack Obama and their dismay about the dangers and incompetence of liberalism’s legacy, the regulatory state.

Some of the Republicans who want to kick President Obama out of office next year are sounding off today with their opposition to a deal the White ...

From the right and center: mild disgust. From the left: outright anger. Americans showed a range of emotions and responses to the debt-limit deal President Barack Obama and top...

Senate Majority Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Sunday night that they had come to an agreement on a deal that would raise the debt limit and reduce the deficit.

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.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the key Republican negotiator, expressed optimism that a $3-trillion deal could be reached to avert a federal default. A Senate procedural vote is scheduled for 1 p.m.