Federal Deficit | featured news

Liberals' loud objections to White House proposals for slowing the growth of huge social programs make it clear that neither political party puts a high priority on reducing the deficit, despite much talk to the contrary....

Congressional Democrats and Republicans appeared far apart Sunday on a deal to avert $85 billion in federal spending reductions next month, with a top House Republican saying the cuts appear “inevitable.” The automatic cuts, known as sequester, kick in March 1 because the parties have failed to agree on a less-drastic plan to cut the federal budget and deficit.

President Barack Obama's re-election has stiffened Democrats' spine against cutting popular benefit programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Their new resolve could become as big a hurdle to a deal that would skirt crippling tax increases and spending cuts in January as Republicans' resistance to raising tax rates on the wealthy.

The outline of a compromise over upcoming federal tax hikes and spending cuts began to come into focus Friday after President Obama convened congressional leaders at the White House.

Congressional leaders of both parties will meet with the president in an effort to reach a deal to avoid across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that could push the economy into recession.

...In his first full-scale news conference since March, Obama said he was willing to compromise with Republicans to forge a deal on the nation's debt and taxes to avoid the "fiscal cliff," a combination of budget cuts and tax increases that will kick in next year if such an agreement is not reached.

President Barack Obama is lobbying business and labor groups to support his plan to avoid an impending fiscal cliff, telling the two sides he remains committed to requiring the wealthy to pay more in taxes.

Flush with re-election vigor, President Barack Obama on Friday will provide his first public comments on the upcoming negotiations with Congress on how to deal with pending tax hikes and spending cuts that create the so-called fiscal cliff facing the economy at the end of the year.

...Or, as astrophysicist and PBS “Nova ScienceNOW” host Neil de Grasse Tyson put it, more pithily, on Twitter, “Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the Federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive.”

Voters have long favored President Obama over Mitt Romney for handling terrorism and advancing the interests of the middle class. Romney, however, has consistently enjoyed a wide advantage on only one issue: the nation’s gaping budget deficit.