Budget Deficit, Spending Cuts | featured news

President Barack Obama unveiled his proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget plan Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden, offering a combination of new spending initiatives and tax increases aimed at creating jobs and reducing future budget deficits. In his remarks, Obama called his plan “a fiscally responsible blueprint for middle-class jobs and growth.”

The wrangling of President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans over the federal budget underscores a clash of core philosophies about how the economy works that supersedes any skirmish on taxes or spending cuts.

First Read: As the Obama White House and Congress negotiate to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they favor a balanced deal, consisting of both higher tax rates and cuts key entitlement programs.

The budget deficit rose in October, the first month of fiscal year 2013, as looming negotiations over expiring tax cuts and imminent spending reductions dominated the post-election political landscape.

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2011, the same as the previous fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said.

Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday the Obama administration wouldn't let middle class Americans "carry the whole burden" to break a deadlock over the national debt limit, warning that the Republican approach would only benefit ...

Well, no one can doubt anymore that Republicans are petrified that the Medicare cuts in Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget might cost them the 26th congressional district in New York, long a safe Republican seat, in the May 24 special election. It’s a classic technique in politics that if your opponent has found an issue that’s working against you, you turn the tables and declare your opponent’s position to be as bad as yours, or worse.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned in a letter to Congress that failure to raise the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling would drive up interest rates, push down household wealth, put more pressure on federal entitlement programs and cause a double-dip recession.

With high gas prices and federal deficits in the political spotlight, senior Democrats believe that Senate Republicans will support an idea they otherwise might not like.

President Obama's deficit-reduction plan “falls short” of targets set by House Republicans and Obama's own fiscal commission and would be unlikely to stabilize borrowing, according to a new independent ...