Budget | featured news

Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama became the first Democratic president ever to propose cutting Social Security. Democrats spend so much time defending the president, it is easy to forget that even the most beloved presidents make mistakes and missteps. His new budget, which proposes a new method of calculating inflation increases in Social Security payments, is a doozy.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday became the first prominent Republican to publicly praise, however lukewarmly, the budget proposal the White House outlined last week. Graham said that while he believes President Barack Obama's plan is overall bad for the economy, "there are nuggets of his budget that I think are optimistic," and that could set the stage for a broad bargain to put the nation's finances on a stronger footing. He was speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Stagnant revenue and rising employee costs threaten City Hall with a $222-million shortfall, official says. A proposal to outsource ambulance services provokes anger from firefighters union. Los Angeles' top budget official raised the specter of bankruptcy Friday in a sweeping report that calls for new taxes, possible layoffs and the privatization of some city services.

Republicans are ready to ram through the House an election-year, $3.5 trillion budget that showcases their deficit-cutting plan for revamping Medicare and slicing everything from food stamps to transportation while rejecting President Barack Obama's call to raise taxes on the rich....

The Seattle Public Library, a beloved civic trophy in a book-loving city, whose directors are plucked away for plum jobs by presidents and philanthropists and whose buildings are often beacons of design, is closed all week — yet again. The furlough, intended to save about $650,000 from the system’s $50 million budget, has become something of a late-summer tradition in recent years, hardly as welcome as the weather.

Look across the Atlantic today and you might spot the U.S. military’s future. As the Pentagon prepares to cut spending, the British Defense Ministry is apparently well on its way toward slashing its budget, with plans to reduce the size of its Army to levels not seen since around the 19th century.

Egypt will not borrow from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund after revising its budget and cutting the forecast deficit, even though a loan had been agreed, Finance Minister Samir Radwan said Saturday.

Officials in Costa Mesa say they are just trying to solve a budget problem, but some see a political motive.

According to David Bach, personal finance expert and author of bestsellers like Debt Free For Life, the biggest mistake parents make is not saying "no." They grant their children's every wish or cave in after they've already established rules or budgets.

It sounds like a pretty good starting point for negotiations: The White House and Capitol Hill Democrats say they're ready to meet the GOP halfway in the latest round of budget talks, offering $50 billion in cuts compared with Republicans' proposed $100 billion worth of reductions....