Congress, Government | featured news

The federal government could save tens of billions of dollars each year by trimming duplicative programs including catfish inspections by three separate agencies and 159 contracting organizations that provide foreign-language support for the Defense Department, according to a report from Congress's auditing agency.

The House is taking its first step Wednesday to avoid a government shutdown, as Washington looks to forgo forcing a fiscal crisis this month and instead turns its attention to a more deliberate debate over long-term deficit reduction.

Americans are not happy with the government. But for the first time in a long while, it is not the most hated industry in the country. That honor now belongs to the oil and gas industry.

Bob Greene says we wouldn't tolerate workers we'd hired for a job in our home fighting about the work and not getting anything done. Why do we accept it from government officials?

President Barack Obama asked Congress on Friday for sweeping authority to consolidate trade and business-related parts of the federal government to untangle what he called an "outdated bureaucratic maze" and help boost exports.

The answer is no. And that goes for presidential candidates too.

More than four out five Americans say they are dissatisfied with the way the nation is being run, according to a Gallup survey reporting a resounding thumbs-down for the federal government as it prepares to deal with another round of budget challenges.

The U.S. House of Representatives unexpectedly defeated a bill that would fund the federal government past September 30 on Wednesday as dozens of Republicans broke with their party to push for deeper spending cuts.

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.

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.