Keeping one American service member in Afghanistan costs between $850,000 and $1.4 million a year, depending on who you ask. But one matter is clear, that cost is going up.
President Obama gave a boost Tuesday to a bipartisan Senate plan to slash the nation's debt by about $3.7 trillion over the next ten years.
CNN's John King takes a close look at two scenarios for prioritizing federal dollars if the debt ceiling isn't raised.
Members of a bipartisan group of senators who worked for months to forge an agreement to make deep reductions in the federal debt will unveil a plan to slash trillions of dollars off that debt over the next 10 years.
Washington lawmakers are kicking around a new idea to help raise funds to fix our highways and infrastructure: a national driving tax charging motorists by the mile.
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.
Budget Cmte. Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad on creating the long-term budget and the possibility of a government shutdown.
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner told a gathering of religious broadcasters that the nation's mounting debt is a moral threat to the country.
Talk about not mincing words. Democrat Kent Conrad, the Senate budget chairman, laid bare his extreme frustration with President Obama's 2012 budget request this week.
The top budget chiefs from both political parties criticized President Obama's 2012 budget Monday.
The push to come up with a plan to reduce national debt got a bipartisan bear hug in the Senate on Tuesday.
Three longtime senators who have decided not to seek re-election in 2012 said Sunday that they believe the country is ready for serious bipartisan cooperation on major issues -- especially tackling the massive national debt.
Kent Conrad's announcement this week that he would step down in 2012 rather than seek re-election didn't draw much attention outside the Beltway. But it should -- because it could have a big impact on the nation's finances.
Defying expectations, more than 60% of President Obama's debt commission voted Friday in favor of the group's final recommendations for reducing the country's long-term debt.
President Obama has got a new budget director, four months after he asked for one.
CNN's Joe Johns asks Sens. John Cornyn and Mark Warner what items they'd look at to cut the nation's deficit.
If the United States is to remain a preeminent economic power, it will have to swallow a strong dose of fiscal belt-tightening to ease the country's staggering deficit, two members of President Barack Obama's deficit commission said Sunday.
Most policymakers in Washington agree the economy needs help.
President Obama, looking to assure the country that he's the man with an economic plan, is taking his message to the media, and ultimately, the American public.
Despite President Obama's accusation Wednesday that Republicans are holding middle class income tax cuts "hostage" by tying them to an extension of tax cuts for wealthier Americans, the reality is several Democratic senators also oppose allowing President Bush's tax cuts for higher earners to expire.
It's a refrain for those who think the government should do more to help the economy: The recovery is still fragile, so policymakers should wait before reining in U.S. debt.
Deputy political director Paul Steinhauser looks at new CNN polls ahead of Thursday's health care summit.
The day before the White House's bipartisan summit on health care reform, there didn't appear to be much mood for compromise on Capitol Hill.
The Senate on Thursday voted to raise the cap on how much the government can borrow to a record level.
The Senate on Tuesday rejected a proposal to create a bipartisan commission charged with reining in the country's debt.
The Senate on Tuesday is likely to vote on a proposal that would create a bipartisan commission charged with reining in the country's debt.
The push to address the United States' long-term fiscal problems, and to remove the debate from the partisanship in Congress, took a step forward Wednesday.
President Obama is seriously considering an executive order to create a bipartisan commission that could weigh sweeping tax increases and spending cuts to try to slash the soaring federal deficit, CNN has learned.
More coverage. More choice. Better care.
While a government-run public health care option irks conservatives, and even some fiscally minded Democrats, the idea of health care cooperatives has emerged as an option in the reform debate.
CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser looks at the possibility of Obama giving up the public insurance option.
The White House sought to reassure jittery supporters Monday that President Obama is not abandoning the fight for a public health insurance option.
A key Senate negotiator said Sunday that President Obama should drop his push for a government-funded public health insurance option because the Senate will never pass it.
After a "pep talk" from President Obama, Senate Democrats said Tuesday they believe Congress will pass a bipartisan health care bill this year.
To: Interested parties From: John King, CNN chief national correspondent Re: Monday Memo
After huddling Wednesday with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus told reporters that lawmakers still need to come up with $320 billion over the coming decade in taxes to pay for the health care plan. The remaining cost of the bill would be paid for through savings in Medicare, Medicaid and other programs.
Senate negotiators are searching for new ways to pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health insurance system after recent polls showed many Americans oppose funding it through taxes on employer-provided health insurance, a key senator said Tuesday.
Reality Check on claim that 119 million people would lose insurance under Democrats' reform plan. Dana Bash reports.
The Senate Finance Committee has crafted a health care reform bill that is less than $1 trillion, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, announced Thursday.
The struggle over health care reform reached a fever pitch Wednesday as sharp partisan lines were drawn over the politically explosive question of a possible government-funded public plan competing with private insurers' plans.
Another interesting Sunday, this one dominated by the complicated policy and political choices of the debate over health care and the uncertainty the disputed presidential election in Iran adds to the already unpredictable U.S. and international dealings with Tehran.
The debate over whether to have a government-backed insurance plan is fast becoming the most divisive health care reform issue.
Congress approved a $3.4 trillion budget for the coming year Wednesday, approving most of President Obama's key spending priorities including increasing in health care, education and alternative energy spending.
House and Senate Democrats reached agreement late Monday on a budget resolution for 2010, which includes key spending priorities for the young Obama administration.
A tightened version of President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget moved through a key Senate committee Thursday night.
GOP leaders say they are rolling out an alternative to the Obama budget that includes 'lower taxes and lower spending.'
House Republicans on Thursday said they have come up with an alternative proposal to the president's budget, following criticism from Democrats that they have become the "party of no."
Fred Thompson tells CNN's John Roberts that he wants some of President Obama's policies to fail.
President Obama huddled with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill Wednesday as the White House fought to save major domestic priorities in its record $3.6 trillion budget from the congressional budget ax.
The fight on Capitol Hill over next year's federal budget begins in earnest on Wednesday, when the Senate and House Budget Committees will debate just how much they want to spend and tax in 2010.
Hours before President Obama was to hold a prime time news conference -- in part to boost his $3.6 trillion budget plan -- a key Democratic senator Tuesday unveiled a scaled-down budget proposal.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner sat alone at the witness table answering questions and getting an earful from a panel of senators.
Democratic senators stood behind Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle Monday after a closed-door session of the Senate Finance Committee on the former South Dakota senator's tax troubles.
Pres. Obama announces a new "recovery" Web site. CNN's Josh Levs explores the president's Internet political power.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that House committees will begin action on President-elect Barack Obama's proposed economic recovery package in the next couple of weeks, with a vote in the full House slated for the week after Obama's inauguration.
Betting against bank stocks may soon become much riskier.
Lawmakers and the Bush administration must settle the details on a rescue intended to keep credit flowing and avert a recession.
Billionaire Warren Buffett told congressional negotiators that if they can't agree on a proposed financial bailout, the nation will face "its biggest financial meltdown in American history," two sources familiar with the talks said.
CNNMoney: Accord on rescue planupdated: Sun Sep 28 2008 08:45:00
Congressional leaders said shortly after midnight that they had reached a tentative deal over the White House's proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial system.
President Bush may want to end the ban on offshore drilling, but you wouldn't know it from his administration's failure to obey a key directive in the 2005 Energy Act.
Military contracts in the Iraq theater have cost taxpayers at least $85 billion, according to a Congressional Budget Office report
Sen. Kent Conrad called President Bush's fiscal record the worst in history and said the increased federal debt undermined the U.S. economy.
President Bush's budget chief blamed the faltering economy and the bipartisan stimulus package for the record $482 billion deficit the White House predicted for the 2009 budget year.
Be honest: How many of you are really shocked to find out that a bunch of Washington insiders were part of a VIP program coordinated by mortgage giant Countrywide Financial?
Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential search team on Tuesday shared with a Democratic senator the names of about 20 people under consideration to be the presumptive Democratic nominee's running mate.
CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser goes over how deep the divisions are between McCain and Obama's positions.
The new Farm Bill, which legislators hope to send to the President Friday, would lower farm subsidies, but won't do much for rising food prices
The Federal Reserve slashed two key interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point. CNN's Ali Velshi reports.
If lawmakers want to protect tens of millions of taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax, they'd best make it snappy.
A Senate panel on Wednesday approved an increase in the limit on the national debt to $9.82 trillion, the fifth increase in the government's borrowing limit since President Bush took office.
A national shortage of doctors is hitting poor places the hardest, and efforts to bring in foreign physicians to fill the gap are running into a knot of restrictions from the war on terror and the immigration debate
A Senate committee approved a five-year, $35 billion expansion of a children's health insurance program that would be financed through higher tobacco taxes
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.
In a move in part meant to ease tensions between the White House and Congress, President Bush has nominated former Republican lawmaker Rob Portman to be budget director.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry has urged his Democratic colleagues to unite and filibuster Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, but senators from both sides of the aisle said Friday that isn't going to happen.
On the evening of December 22, Sen. John Warner, the Senate's Acting President Pro Tempore, declared: "In my capacity as the senior senator from Virginia, I ask unanimous consent that the chair now lay before the Senate the House message to accompany S.2167." The Virginia senator and the chair happened to be the same person, John Warner. All his colleagues had left to celebrate Christmas. Warner granted his own request, and the Senate adjourned after two minutes.
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."
Lawmakers have reached an agreement on how to remove a provision in a giant spending bill that would allow two committee chairmen to review individual tax returns, a spokesman for Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday.
A provision in the giant omnibus spending bill that would have allowed two lawmakers access to the tax returns of every American was "too dangerous" and should "never become law," the senator whose staff found the provision said Monday.
Fortune: Red Ink Runneth Overupdated: Mon Jun 24 2002 00:01:00
Over the next few weeks Congress will do something it hasn't done for a while--fret publicly about budget deficits. Politicians will confront the issue as early as this month, when they'll have to ...
In recent years, fiscal restraint and balanced budgets were perceived to be the ultimate measures of good government. The government ran a budget surplus from 1998 to 2000. Overnight, all that has ...
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