In a stunning vote that illustrated President Bush's diminished standing, the Senate on Thursday ignored his veto threat and added tens of billions of dollars for veterans and the unemployed to his Iraq war spending bill.
Defying President Bush's demand to send him a clean war funding bill, House Democratic leaders unveiled legislation Tuesday that conditions the money on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and adds billions of dollars in domestic spending.
The candidate told "forgotten" America that big government isn't the answer, but his message wasn't aimed only at them
U.S. military scientists are developing half-machine, half-insect creatures to collect intelligence behind enemy lines
Last year Sen. Barack Obama, submitted a laundry list of federal funding requests, known as earmarks, to the Senate Appropriations Committee: 112 earmarks totaling more than $330 million in taxpayer funds.
Bush administration officials Monday expressed doubt about an economist's column published over the weekend saying the war in Iraq will cost the United States more than $3 trillion.
Most members of Congress call them earmarks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to get them called "legislatively directed spending." But for almost every American taxpayer I've run into over the last year, it's called "pork" and it's not very tasty.
President Bush blasted the Democratic-controlled Congress on Tuesday for having "the worst record in 20 years."
In tiny Bishop, California, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California, wants to build a museum honoring the mule.
President Bush on Wednesday spoke about legislation pending in Congress -- including an override of his veto on the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- and answered journalists' questions during a news conference at the White House.
In a stunning vote that illustrated President Bush's diminished standing, the Senate on Thursday ignored his veto threat and added tens of billions of dollars for veterans and the unemployed to his Iraq war spending bill.
Defying President Bush's demand to send him a clean war funding bill, House Democratic leaders unveiled legislation Tuesday that conditions the money on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and adds billions of dollars in domestic spending.
The candidate told "forgotten" America that big government isn't the answer, but his message wasn't aimed only at them
U.S. military scientists are developing half-machine, half-insect creatures to collect intelligence behind enemy lines
Last year Sen. Barack Obama, submitted a laundry list of federal funding requests, known as earmarks, to the Senate Appropriations Committee: 112 earmarks totaling more than $330 million in taxpayer funds.
Bush administration officials Monday expressed doubt about an economist's column published over the weekend saying the war in Iraq will cost the United States more than $3 trillion.
Most members of Congress call them earmarks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to get them called "legislatively directed spending." But for almost every American taxpayer I've run into over the last year, it's called "pork" and it's not very tasty.
President Bush blasted the Democratic-controlled Congress on Tuesday for having "the worst record in 20 years."
In tiny Bishop, California, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California, wants to build a museum honoring the mule.
President Bush on Wednesday spoke about legislation pending in Congress -- including an override of his veto on the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- and answered journalists' questions during a news conference at the White House.
There will be lots of celebrating in Washington next month when the Treasury announces that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2007, which ends September 30, will have dropped to a mere $158 billion, give or take a few bucks.
The U.S. budget deficit will shrink this year to $158 billion from $248 billion last year, but the long-term budget outlook is "daunting" due largely to rising demands from the baby boom generation, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday.
President Bush predicted Wednesday that strong tax receipts would cause the U.S. budget deficit to shrink to $205 billion this year, marking the third straight annual decline.
With his poll numbers in the tank, the President seems to be gearing up for a veto fight with Congress over a long forgotten issue -- controlling spending
The projected dates for when the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will be exhausted have been pushed back one year, according to the programs' trustees in their 2007 annual report released Monday. But the trustees also issued a "funding warning" for Medicare.
He has recently made stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, giving speeches and holding town hall meetings. But he's not seeking the presidency.
The following is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday:
President Bush's proposed budget for 2008 repeats his call for establishing private Social Security accounts, but the issue is not likely to get far in the Democratic-led Congress.
To achieve a budget surplus by 2012 while boosting spending on the military, President Bush has proposed curtailing domestic spending, permanently extending his tax cuts and only providing relief from the alternative minimum tax for one more year.
President Bush in his State of the Union address Tuesday laid out a plan intended to make healthcare more affordable, give everyone who buys insurance the same tax break and incentivize you to be more cost-conscious in how you spend your healthcare dollars.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke Thursday turned up the volume on the debate over Social Security reform - an issue that was declared dead last year but has been injected with new life in recent weeks.
George W. Bush seldom suffered personally from doing what's unpopular politically. In fact, you could argue that he has made a career of it, holding fast to positions that many voters reject, as a sign of strength in these dangerous times. So his willingness to exercise his first-ever veto this week on a bill that would expand federal funding for human embryonic-stem-cell research, which 2 out of 3 voters favor, is not just a way to stroke his political base. "People like leadership much better than a finger in the wind," says White House press secretary Tony Snow. As Bush explained to him while in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the G-8 summit last week, "I took a position. I believe in it. So that's what I'm going to do."
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Do you live in a "donor" state?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Who's afraid of the big bad federal budget deficit? Not the bond or currency markets.
A Senate rider inserted in an emergency appropriations bill in the dead of the night, which would close a rare window into political foul play at the Internal Revenue Service, was quietly removed Tuesday in Senate-House negotiations.
THERE'S A RAT LOOSE HERE at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and it's coming right at me. Suddenly it veers and goes back the way it came. Then it loops around and darts toward me ag...
A survey finds affluent Americans growing more concerned about the state of the economy.
The senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee said Saturday that President Bush is "passing on a crippling and growing debt to our children and grandchildren."
Following is a copy of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's prepared remarks for testimony before the House Budget Committee Wednesday, as posted on the Fed's Web site.
The Bush administration plans to introduce legislation to restructure the nation's passenger rail system, while Amtrak supporters in Congress fight to maintain funding in next fiscal year's budget.
The dollar rallied to a two-month high against the yen as hopes for a Chinese revaluation of the yuan faded. The greenback also built on gains verses the euro in light of a U.S. budget proposal that is seen by some as a serious effort to tackle the deficit problem.
The White House conceded Monday it will likely have to borrow money to pay for the president's proposal to create private accounts for younger workers to revamp Social Security.
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- Forget all the snide knocks at the eccentric Texas billionaire, Ross Perot proved conclusively in his 1992 independent run for the presidency that even a losing candidate, with a strong message, can profoundly change national policy.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned the U.S. must deal with the causes of the weak dollar -- the U.S. trade deficit and the federal budget deficit -- or the country could run into economic problems down the line.
There is an important question that, if asked of either presidential candidate during the upcoming debates, is guaranteed to elicit an evasive nonanswer. It goes something like this: "All the fisca...
House Democrats missed two important opportunities last week.
Are the budget deficits, the national debt and the financial problems of the Social Security system smoke and mirrors -- that is, something our "all talk and no action" politicians just like to squabble about? Or are they something we really need to worry about?
Contrary to popular belief, the curse "May you live in interesting times" may not be Chinese, and it may not be ancient.
Calling it a "high priority," President Bush on Wednesday asked Congress for an additional $25 billion to cover military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even partisan Republicans have expressed deep skepticism about President Bush's budget's fiscal responsibility--or lack thereof. Joshua Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, ...
When Alan Greenspan testified before congress in mid-February, the Fed chairman delivered a Valentine's Day garland to the recent performance of the U.S. economy, lauding the "stunning increases in...
Never count George Bush out. When he hits a roadblock, he will often overcome it with sheer persistence. No, we don't mean the capture of Saddam Hussein. We're talking about privatizing Social Secu...
There was a time when the Republicans could effectively paint the Democrats as "tax and spend" liberals, while portraying themselves as the party of fiscal restraint. This election, however, that ...
Who doesn't love low interest rates?
The economy is surging, unemployment is shrinking, and the Dow has reconquered 10,000. So why then is Robert Rubin convinced the sky is falling?
Like a cowboy-boot wearing David Blaine, President Bush has promised to perform an amazing feat of prestidigitation: he's going to saw the whopping federal budget deficit in half in just five short years.
If you want to rile Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, just suggest that the Social Security system is in dire straits.
Federal budget policy is more of a mess today than it's been in decades. Deficit spending will reach an estimated $157 billion this year and will continue for several more years even in the rosiest...
One of the notable things about the presidential primaries so far is the largely superficial treatment given to the candidates' economic views. Charges and countercharges about tax reform, tax cuts...
Could the national debt soon be an endangered species? Although $7.5 trillion in outstanding notes and bonds won't fade away quickly, the capital is agog with the notion that both the deficit and t...
Just Moments after President Clinton presented his Social Security reform plan during his State of the Union address, Republican Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn of Washington went on camera to deliver ...
Contrary to what many conservatives will tell you, there is such a thing as a bad tax cut. Consider these: one from Republican Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri, the other from Democratic President...
THIS MONTH:
When did big government begin? Conservatives of all ages tend to think federal spending went out of control around their tenth birthday. Commentators who have a little more historical perspective t...
If you've looked at all at the finances and forecasts of the Social Security system, you've been shocked and appalled. As any number of analysts have warned in recent years, America's vaunted publi...
APRIL 1996 MAY MARK THE BEGINNING OF the end of the Social Security system as Americans have known it for 60 years. Sometime this spring, the Clinton Administration's 13-member Advisory Council on ...
Washington will be buzzing in the months ahead with talk about balancing the budget, cutting back government outlays, and pruning federal programs, but here's a prediction: Until Congress dramatica...
Americans don't like the budget deficit. Year in and year out they list it as a major worry (82% in a recent Gallup poll said reducing the deficit should be one of Congress's top priorities). It's ...
If we have learned anything from the 30 years of frustration since we declared war on poverty, it should be this: You can't fix the problem if you don't understand it. Strategies founded on oversim...
THE WASHINGTON business lobby is awash in euphoria. "I haven't felt this good since Reagan won," says Dirk Van Dongen, head of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. Jerry Jasinowski,...
Amid all the confusion, here are at least six things you can count on from Bill Clinton's revolutionary -- and still evolutionary -- economic plan.
CHANCES ARE that the current decade has not been particularly kind to you. Even if you are not among the millions whose jobs vanished, you may be covering for a slew of fallen colleagues and workin...
YOU SAY you've heard enough about the federal budget deficit? You know it will come to roughly $314 billion in fiscal 1992? You know the national debt grew from nearly $1 trillion ten years ago to ...
IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, where the February 18 primary is fast approaching, there is only one political issue: the sputtering U.S. economy. Now that Mario Cuomo has made his to-be-or-not-to-be decision, D...
Last April, a new job enabled Leland and Kathy Rhodes to flee the gathering gloom of tax hell in California for the pristine uplands of tax heaven in Wyoming. Today, as the $60,000-a-year chief fin...
IS THERE an economic phenomenon more frustrating than the federal budget deficit? For a decade it has mocked us, defying all efforts to eliminate it -- from the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985, w...
TO MERE taxpaying mortals, the dollars committed to Desert Storm look as awesome as the battle itself. Every time a cruise missile goes off, it's more than $1 million. Scud-busting Patriots cost so...
We should properly relish the failure of Communism and the corresponding triumph of capitalism, but we should try to be realistic about what we are celebrating. Our society has won because, through...
AMERICA ENTERS the 1990s bristling with opportunity. The spread of pluralistic, democratic capitalism -- a victory for American ideals and policy -- promises a world bound more tightly together, la...
Inflation has come too close to a boil for comfort, and any hopes have faded for a quick agreement to trim the federal deficit. Each of these developments is a worry for the economy during the comi...
THEY SUPPORTED BUSH overwhelmingly in the election, but now that he's about to become their President, America's CEOs have stern talk for him about the deficit. Cut it, they say. Cut spending in al...
The best way for the federal government to get its financial house in order? Increase the gasoline tax, substantially. Most proponents of this idea cite the need for more federal revenue and the vi...
The Democrats' main economic argument against George Bush is that his boss presided over a doubling of the national debt. The argument has been effective; it taps into the vague fear that terrible ...
ENTER the strange world of Social Security, as exotically inside out as the domain of black holes and anti-matter that physicists describe. Within the borders of this unexpected land the U.S. runs ...
SO YOU THINK a recession is bound to come before the end of next year. The expansion is aging -- it's so ancient it's creaking, you say. Well, think again. We're here to tell you it still has a way...
IT'S HARD TO SPOT Vice President George Bush without an economist at hand. The Yale Phi Beta Kappa in economics figures that distinguished conservative thinkers can help him convey an upbeat econom...
LAST MONTH'S 100-point drop in the Dow, triggered by disappointing news about the U.S. trade deficit, was a glint on the sword that hangs over the world financial system. In another month or so, Am...
''Our goal, which is a goal we think we can achieve during fiscal year 1972, is to operate with a balanced budget.'' -- President Richard Nixon, July 1970 1972 federal budget deficit: $23.4 billion...
A stronger U.S. dollar and steady interest rates propelled most of the major indexes to new records. Five times in June the Dow Jones industrial average set new highs -- the last at 2451.05 -- and ...
PROSPECTS for shrinking the federal deficit are surprisingly good. Last year at this time legislators hadn't breached partisan battle lines. Now the House and Senate are already close to agreement ...
IN THE COMPASSION-PACKED Sixties and Seventies, welfare became a right, checks became grants, and social workers turned into ''human services technicians.'' But now the buzzword in the welfare bure...
''Hey, what's everybody lining up for?'' asks the dapper young New Yorker, stepping out of a taxi. It is 10 P.M. on a Monday night, and across the street from Grand Central, Manhattan's Beaux Arts ...
The manner in which the federal government represents its financial condition is woefully misleading. For all the debate about the exact costs of items in the federal budget and the very precise de...
Many Americans, including this reviewer, wish to reduce the role of government in their lives. But not many of us libertarians have thought much about a strategy for doing so. We have generally bel...
The American economy is shifting from a high-speed hustle to a sedate waltz, and the effects will be felt worldwide. Last year's roaring growth produced something for everyone. The recovery remaine...
POLITICIANS, pundits, and most economists have come to agree that the federal budget deficit is the paramount problem facing the U.S. By ''the deficit'' they no longer mean the difference between t...
The war on federal spending--at least the rhetorical war--will heat up in the coming months as President Reagan renews his call for the line item veto, the power for the President to veto individua...
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