Federal Budget, Spending Cuts | 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....

"It's in areas like health care, education and job training," Packer said. "Programs are closing or are being cut, layoffs are happening. It's not just waiting in line a bit longer at the airport."

With many air traffic controllers on unpaid leave, lawmakers criticized the agency for how it was handling the automatic budget cuts required by sequestration.

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.

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 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.

President Barack Obama’s proposed budget will call for reductions in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs by including a proposal to lower cost-of-living adjustments to government social safety net spending, a senior administration official says.

US Airways is blaming a dip in revenue on federal budget cuts, Reuters reports. The carrier says it thinks the cuts have reduced demand for last-minute tickets, which typically go for the highest fares.

President Obama signed a spending bill Tuesday that headed off a government shutdown.

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.