Congress, U.s. Debt Limit | featured news

Growth in retail sales stalled in August after a pitched battle over spending in Congress led consumer confidence to crumble, data showed on Wednesday.

Americans are plenty angry at Congress in the aftermath of the debt crisis and Republicans could pay the greatest price, a new Associated Press-GfK poll suggests....

The debate over raising the debt ceiling, which brought the nation to the brink of default, has sent disapproval of Congress to its highest level on record.

Participants in the debt ceiling debate placed the spotlight on programs with a barely measurable impact on the deficit and put off to the indefinite future the things that really matter. Now that Congress is finished displaying its one unquestionable skill — conniving at ideological extortion, with the household budgets of millions of Americans hanging in the balance — the time has come to calculate the damage done to U.S. fiscal policy by the debt ceiling deal reached this week.

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 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.

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.