Senate, House Of Representatives | featured news

House and Senate Republican leaders told President Barack Obama Thursday that they will refuse to nominate candidates to serve on an advisory board that is to play a role in holding down Medicare costs under the new health care act.

Across-the-board spending cuts all but certain, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are staging a politically charged showdown designed to avoid public blame for any resulting inconvenience or disruption in government services.

The Congressional members, including Republicans, noted their outrage that the Republican leadership did not present the $60.4 billion package already passed by the Senate for a House vote.

House members were meeting to decide whether they would go along with the Senate's approval of a last-minute deal to pull the U.S. back from the so-called fiscal cliff.

Agonizingly close to a New Year's Eve compromise, the White House and congressional Republicans agreed Monday to block across-the-board tax increases set for midnight, but held up a final deal as they haggled away the final hours of 2012

It may not sound like it from the rhetoric, but both the House and Senate have passed separate bills to delay big tax increases awaiting nearly every taxpayer next year if Congress and the White House can't agree on a plan to avert the "fiscal cliff."...

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she will run to keep her job as the Democratic leader in the House after a pair of elections that kept the party in the minority there even as Democrats gained seats in the Senate and a second term for President Barack Obama.

The current Congress has worked just as many days as its legislative predecessors. It just has a lot less to show for it.

Rep. Barney Frank , D-Mass., said he advised President Obama against taking up health care reform following a special election in 2010 that changed Democrats' fortunes in the Senate, saying that he should have instead turned his focus to financial reform.

This is what a smaller government will look like: There will be less money for local cops, but more money for FBI agents. Less to repair public-housing complexes. More to feed hungry children. There will be less to fix polluted rivers. But more to fix crowded prisons.