Barack Obama, Congress | featured news

David Gergen says President Obama needs a big debate victory to claim broad support for his second-term plans... Moreover, a big Obama victory would keep the Senate safely in Democratic hands and -- less likely -- might put a few House seats in play.

The ads have hit hard: In one, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown is slammed as an out-of-touch politician who saddled his state's manufacturers with higher taxes by voting for President Obama's health care law. In another, he is savaged for his "failed record on energy."

Seeking to make Congress a major issue in his re-election bid, President Obama called on lawmakers today to pass a bill designed to help struggling homeowners re-finance their properties.

Obama told Jennifer Jacobs of the Register, "If the majority of the American people have said, 'This is the direction we need to go,' and the Republicans in Congress say, 'No, we're going to go in the exact opposite direction,' that's probably not going to leave them to keep that (congressional) majority too long."

The Republicans used their Saturday radio address to pressure President Obama over possible defense cuts.

First, obstruct any and all efforts to strengthen the economy, then exploit the economy’s weakness for political gain. If this strategy sounds cynical, that’s because it is. Yet it’s the G.O.P.’s best chance for victory in November.

President Obama and John Boehner have very different recollections of a tense phone call during the 2011 dispute over the debt ceiling, according to Bob Woodward's new book. They do agree that Obama called Boehner to say he would never sign an agreement that would force a reprise of the debt-ceiling debate before the 2012 election, according to the book The Price of Politics, to be released Tuesday.

President Obama said Friday that the job growth reflected in the latest employment report is “not good enough” but suggested things would get better quicker if Congress would cooperate.

President Obama told congressional leaders Tuesday that he is extending a two-year pay freeze for federal employees until at least next spring because Congress has not agreed on a budget for the next fiscal year.

It was once President Barack Obama's "war of necessity." Now, it's America's forgotten war. The Afghan conflict generates barely a whisper on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. It's not a hot topic at the office water cooler or in the halls of Congress - even though more than 80,000 American troops are still fighting here and dying at a rate of one a day.