Independent deficit hawks -- as opposed to the political ones seeking votes -- gave mixed reviews to President Obama's 2013 budget proposal.
The sovereign credit rating of the United States is under review by Fitch Ratings after a Congressional super committee failed to reach agreement on reducing the nation's budget deficit.
CNN's Lisa Desjardins reports on what's supposed to happen next If the super committee doesn't reach a deal.
Uncertainty lingered Tuesday about what the continued fallout would be from the failure of the congressional "super committee" to forge a deficit reduction deal.
President Barack Obama and congressional leaders traded blame Monday for the failure of the congressional "super committee" to forge a deficit reduction deal, but they also called for Congress to work out an agreement before painful automatic budget cuts take place in 2013.
There is a war going on in Washington, and the politicians waging it can't even agree on what kind it is.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says President Obama's plan for a new tax rate for millionaires amounts to "class warfare."
A group of 36 senators from both parties came together Thursday to pledge support for a comprehensive deficit reduction plan, urging the special congressional committee working on the issue to "go big."
Calls for a special congressional committee to work out a comprehensive deficit reduction deal increased Wednesday, with a group of fiscally conservative House Democrats sending the panel a letter encouraging its members to "go big."
A special congressional committee charged with forging a deficit reduction deal by Thanksgiving has to make final decisions weeks earlier in order to have time to analyze the plan's cost and draft it into legislation, the head of the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.
Differing partisan perspectives were on display Thursday as a special congressional committee set up under last month's debt-ceiling agreement held its first meeting to begin forging a long-term deficit reduction plan.
CNN's Fareed Zakaria predicts the celebrated Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction will deadlock.
President Barack Obama will propose ideas for how the special congressional committee created by the recent debt ceiling deal can reach a deficit reduction plan that exceeds the required $1.5 trillion total, a White House spokesman said Wednesday.
The United States is still set to rack up large deficits in the next decade, but not quite as large as previously estimated. At the same time, economic growth is expected to be modest and the unemployment rate is likely to stay high for a few more years.
President Barack Obama expressed confidence Wednesday that America will ultimately overcome its current economic woes but once again blamed a dysfunctional, excessively partisan political system for hampering recovery efforts.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer talks to President Obama about his current and future plans to spur job creation in the U.S.
Fitch Ratings on Tuesday reaffirmed the United States' AAA credit rating.
CNN's Richard Quest reports from Wall Street on impact U.S. economy has on global markets.
Moody's Investors Service explained Monday why it was sticking with its triple-A bond rating and negative outlook for the United States, setting itself apart from Standard & Poor's, which downgraded the U.S. last week.
President Obama has signed into law a bill that raises the debt ceiling and cuts spending. Democrats are reeling because revenue increases were not part of the first round of the debt-limit deal. The initial roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years will come entirely from caps on discretionary spending, both defense and domestic.
Rating agency officials declined to rate competing political plans to allow the United States to borrow more and cut deficits during a congressional hearing Wednesday.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says that President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are still talking.
After expectations were raised of a possible deal earlier Sunday, weekend talks to resolve the nation's debt-ceiling crisis appeared to reach a new stalemate, as the sides pursued separate plans.
After a fifth meeting in five days failed Thursday to achieve a deficit reduction deal, President Barack Obama told top congressional leaders to reach an agreement on the path forward by early Saturday, officials said.
White House Spokesman Jay Carney says a deal will be reached and the president is adamant the US will not default on debt obligations.
President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met over the weekend as part of ongoing negotiations on an agreement to reduce the country's deficit, a Republican official told CNN late Tuesday.
President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he invited Democratic and Republican leaders from both chambers of Congress to the White House for a meeting Thursday to discuss deficit reduction and the need to raise the federal debt ceiling.
President Barack Obama believes "a significant deal" on deficit reduction remains possible this year so long as Republicans are willing to accept that no one will get everything they want in the negotiations, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.
The formal negotiations over the nation's debt have begun.
A leading Senate conservative said Sunday he can accept tax reform that increases overall tax revenue as part of a comprehensive deficit reduction plan.
The president takes his message of deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility to a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada.
Over and over Thursday, President Barack Obama told workers at a renewable energy company that he is like them.
Two key players in the debate over how to get the nation's fiscal act together have offered their support for President Obama's plan to bring down deficits.
He may have taken his time to join the brewing debate about how to reduce long-term U.S. debt. But President Obama got some kudos from deficit hawks for the broad debt reduction framework he laid out on Wednesday.
CNN's Anderson Cooper reports on how President Obama's position on increasing the debt ceiling has shifted over time.
Partisan warfare over taxes and spending again takes center stage in Washington this week, as Congress considers a budget deal for the remainder of the current fiscal year and President Barack Obama unveils his long-awaited deficit reduction plan.
President Obama takes a lot of heat from Republicans for supposedly being a big spender. But when it comes to future deficits, the president's problem isn't spending. It's the tax cuts.
Washington has been preoccupied with the prospect of a federal government shutdown. Protesters from the Tea Party to the pro-union Wisconsin activists disproportionately dominate our debates. We cover the political car crash but not the constructive conversation.
Government deficits are the biggest long-term worry of top U.S. economists, according to a survey released Monday.
President Obama on Monday will propose a 2012 federal budget that the White House says will cut deficits by $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
Bond experts to Congress: Turn down the volume on the debt ceiling.
How important is the federal deficit?
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs talks about the role Republicans need to play in 2011.
A new political reality hits Washington next week, with the first split Congress since 2002 raising questions about whether the bipartisan cooperation of the recently concluded lame-duck session can continue.
A bipartisan panel cannot get enough votes to recommend deficit-cutting proposals to Congress.
Twenty years ago last month, a new breed of Republicans was asserting itself in Congress. President George H.W. Bush thought he had bipartisan support for a budget deal to tackle the deficit through steep spending cuts and some tax increases.
The release Wednesday of a draft proposal for reducing the federal deficit made clear how hard it will be to devise a sustainable plan that can win the necessary political support.
In a surprise move Wednesday, the co-chairmen of President Obama's fiscal commission released their preliminary proposals to curb growth in U.S. debt.
Many of the winners in the mid-term elections spent a lot of time pontificating about the perils of the nation's debt.
With a general strike looming on September 29, Spain's prime minister said Friday the government does not plan new cutbacks to shore up the sagging economy.
More than 30 leading budget experts on Monday prescribed a course for deficit reduction that the nation needs to take if it wants to "buy some breathing room" to avoid a debt crisis.
In just over a month, the federal government's fiscal year will draw to a close, leaving in its wake one of the biggest annual deficits in U.S. history -- and a forecast of more record debt to come.
Regardless of the outcome of the health care reform effort, the difficult issue of cutting the federal budget deficit is likely to move front and center in 2010.
Congress has raised the debt ceiling four times in the past two years and will probably have to do it again in the next month.
Pay as you go?
updated: Thu Jun 11 2009 11:12:00
In the face of mounting deficitis, President Obama wants to restore fiscal discipline. CNN's Jim Acosta reports.
President Obama urged Congress to adopt a "pay-as-you-go" approach to federal spending in order to restore fiscal discipline, but critics say the president's call lacks credibility.
Government bonds fall Monday afternoon after stocks end lower, letting go of early gains and snapping a five-day rally.
Foreign purchases of U.S. debt increased in the first month of 2009, according to a Treasury report released Monday, easing some concerns that overseas investors have lost their appetite for U.S. debt.
President Barack Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation's $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term.
The Treasury Department on Wednesday reported that $164.4 billion was added to the federal budget deficit in November -- bringing the total deficit for the first two months of the fiscal year to $401.6 billion.
Two weeks ago in midtown Manhattan, time stood still -- literally. After the country's debt surpassed $10 trillion, the marquee-sized debt clock in Times Square, which has kept a running tally of the U.S. national debt for nearly 20 years, ran out of digits. For a nation already struggling with a bleak economic reality, it was a less-than-reassuring display. Several news organizations quipped about such a literal "sign of the times," while the satiricial newspaper The Onion offered its own brand of gallows humor: "If everyone just donated one dollar, we would have enough money to buy a new clock."Luckily, citizens won't have to pitch in. New York real estate firm The Durst Organization, which owns and operates the clock, plans to install an updated model sometime next year that can display a quadrillion dollars. In the meantime, the company has hacked the current display to provide a temporary solution -- replacing the dollar sign at the front of the number number with an extra digit.
Ross Perot is jumping back into the political fray, this time with a stern warning that the country better start paying attention to the national debt.
Former presidential candidate Ross Perot has launched a Web site to turn attention to the national debt.
The Senate voted Thursday to block a looming tax increase averaging $2,000 for millions of taxpayers after Senate Republicans succeeded in thwarting a Democratic plan to also raise taxes on investors.
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:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Who's afraid of the big bad federal budget deficit? Not the bond or currency markets.
A survey finds affluent Americans growing more concerned about the state of the economy.
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.
George Bush and John Kerry disagree about lots of things, but when it comes to economics, they have the same message: Vote for me, and you'll be better off.
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.
CNNMoney: Do deficits matter?updated: Tue May 18 2004 10:45:00
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?
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?
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...
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...
With this issue, MONEY launches a monthly readers' poll. In these pages, we will ask for your opinions on matters ranging from how to improve the quality of the nation's public schools to the best ...
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 ...
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...
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...
Want to worry less about the federal deficit? Have I got the book for you. Robert Heilbroner and Peter Bernstein have just published a slim and readable tome called The Debt and the Deficit (W.W. N...
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...
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 ...
The Social Security system is headed for unaccustomed trouble in the coming years -- gigantic surpluses. By the mid-Nineties the old age, survivors, and disability portion of Social Security will b...
DESPITE the seemingly endless dithering and prevarication, Washington has truly begun to attack the federal deficit. Progress will not be as impressive as President Reagan predicts -- his recent bu...
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...
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...
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