Federal Budget, Lawmaker | featured news

A senior lawmaker said on Sunday that he and fellow Senate Democrats, for the first time more than in three years, intend to meet Republican demands to finally pass a U.S. budget.

It's an outrageous tale: The federal government spends one out of every $10 in transportation aid on wasteful projects such as refurbishing a giant roadside coffee pot and constructing turtle tunnels.

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.

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.

Top Republican lawmakers and the Obama administration’s budget director both predicted Sunday that an agreement would be reached before the federal government defaults on its debt in early August, but both sides continued to squabble over the details of competing proposals, offering little evidence that a deal was at hand.