When it comes to figuring out what has caused the country's record accumulation of debt, just about every politician in Washington has a theory.
When the stock market broke the 10,000 point barrier a few weeks ago, many investors celebrated. Economists have started to talk about the end of the "Great Recession." But many Americans can't see what all the enthusiasm is about.
They're angry and fighting back with full force.
The Congressional Budget Office is now estimating that limits on medical malpractice lawsuits -- reforms favored by many Republicans -- could save the government as much as $54 billion over the next 10 years.
You don't need a Ph.D in economics to know that the government fiscal year that ended last week was ugly for the budget.
The pace of economic decline in the second quarter slowed at an annual rate of 1%, according to the government's revised reading on gross domestic product. It was unchanged from a previous estimate.
The mood regarding the U.S. economy may be inching, ever so slowly, toward optimism. But don't expect to see much improvement on the jobs front anytime soon. The economy's following a script for a jobless recovery, and unemployment is likely to stay high, if not get slightly worse.
Before I was elected to Congress, I ran a small plastics packaging business in Cincinnati, Ohio, providing products and services, creating jobs and meeting payroll.
After more than six hours of negotiations among White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, talks between House Democratic leaders and key Blue Dog Democrats broke up Tuesday night without a deal on health-care reform.
The fight over health care reform took center stage on Capitol Hill on Friday, as the House Democratic leadership stepped up its push for passage of a bill before the August congressional recess.
When it comes to figuring out what has caused the country's record accumulation of debt, just about every politician in Washington has a theory.
When the stock market broke the 10,000 point barrier a few weeks ago, many investors celebrated. Economists have started to talk about the end of the "Great Recession." But many Americans can't see what all the enthusiasm is about.
They're angry and fighting back with full force.
The Congressional Budget Office is now estimating that limits on medical malpractice lawsuits -- reforms favored by many Republicans -- could save the government as much as $54 billion over the next 10 years.
You don't need a Ph.D in economics to know that the government fiscal year that ended last week was ugly for the budget.
The pace of economic decline in the second quarter slowed at an annual rate of 1%, according to the government's revised reading on gross domestic product. It was unchanged from a previous estimate.
The mood regarding the U.S. economy may be inching, ever so slowly, toward optimism. But don't expect to see much improvement on the jobs front anytime soon. The economy's following a script for a jobless recovery, and unemployment is likely to stay high, if not get slightly worse.
Before I was elected to Congress, I ran a small plastics packaging business in Cincinnati, Ohio, providing products and services, creating jobs and meeting payroll.
After more than six hours of negotiations among White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, talks between House Democratic leaders and key Blue Dog Democrats broke up Tuesday night without a deal on health-care reform.
The fight over health care reform took center stage on Capitol Hill on Friday, as the House Democratic leadership stepped up its push for passage of a bill before the August congressional recess.
The latest polling looks great for President Obama: It shows that Americans love national health care. If history and polling trends are any guide, however, that will change. Voters right now are in what the famous pollster Daniel Yankelovich called the Wishful Thinking stage -- a moment in the life of an opinion analogous to the dreamy early days of a relationship. Yankelovich believed opinion evolved through seven stages: Dawning Awareness, Greater Urgency, Reaching for Solutions, Wishful Thinking, Weighing the Choices, Taking a Stand, and Making a Responsible Judgment. In the next few weeks, when voters discover what national health care will cost and how it would affect their own care, romance will give way to reality.
Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday proposed a graduated tax on wealthy Americans to pay for health care reform, several Democratic sources told CNN.
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.
Americans want, deserve and demand health care reform.
Congressional Republicans offered what they call a "centrist, practical" plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system Tuesday, one they say would be the cheapest of any option proposed so far.
Two key proposals to improve access to health insurance could reduce the ranks of the uninsured but cost $1 trillion over 10 years, according to preliminary estimates released Monday by the Congressional Budget Office.
The economy will start growing in the second half of 2009, but it will be several years before the positive effects of a turnaround will be felt, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday.
Is it finally time to buy homebuilder stocks? The basic math of the real estate market is now working in favor of an industry that, believe it or not, has done a remarkable job paring costs and harboring its financial strength for the recovery that's now dawning.
Throughout our history, each generation made sacrifices to better the lives of the next generation. Part of the American dream has included passing on to your children hope for the future and the possibility of prosperity.
The U.S. budget deficit in 2009 is projected to spike to between $1.67 trillion and $1.85 trillion, according to estimates released Friday by the Congressional Budget Office.
To pay for the massive stimulus plan, bank bailout and other spending, the government is taking on a record amount of debt, issued in the form of government bonds. If no one buys this debt, it could push up interest rates and increase how much you pay for loans on homes, cars and credit cards.
President Obama is in danger of losing the biggest stick in his foreclosure prevention arsenal.
The prices of real estate, stocks and many commodities continue to plummet this year.
When a debate as important -- both in terms of policy and politics -- as the one currently rolling around our nation regarding the president's "stimulus" plan takes place, emotion often takes precedence over fact.
The amended economic recovery bill that the Senate is expected to pass on Tuesday would increase the deficit by $838 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Monday.
The stimulus plan before the Senate would increase the deficit over 10 years by $885 billion, according to a new analysis released on Monday by the Congressional Budget Office.
Bolstered by wide Democratic margins in both chambers of Congress, the new administration assumes power Tuesday with a broad public mandate to repair the feeble economy.
Washington's profligate spending, if unchecked, could create the next financial crisis
Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months, Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday
The budget deficit will jump by $246 billion to $407 billion this year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates in a report released Tuesday.
The United States spent $85 billion on contracts in Iraq and other countries in the first four years of the war and is relying on contract employees at a greater rate than in any other war, according to a government report released Tuesday.
A congressional proposal to have the government help homeowners refinance mortgages they can no longer afford will only help a small fraction of those who are at risk of losing their homes.
You might think that being part of a presidential candidate's brain trust would mean high-level meetings in plush quarters with good food.
A government report on January jobs showing that employers trimmed payrolls for the first time in four years set off alarm bells.
Ahead of Friday's January employment report, there is a lot of concern about the weakening job market, even as the unemployment rate stands at a relatively modest 5%.
Even as Washington nears agreement on measures to minimize the effects of a recession, there is little agreement on how much such moves would boost the economy.
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.
Higher state taxes on smoking are producing sharp declines in tobacco consumption in the United States, just as Congress considers a huge federal cigarette tax hike, USA Today reported in its Friday editions.
You couldn't have seen it coming. Not like this anyway. This year the oldest of the baby boomers will turn 61, just inches away from being eligible to collect their first Social Security check. Rou...
A bill to enact the 9/11 Commission recommendations -- one of the first bills passed by the new Democratic-led House of Representatives -- will cost $21 billion over five years if enacted into law, congressional budget officials said Friday.
A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
President Bush's tax cuts offered the biggest benefits to families in the highest income categories, according to a study cited in a published report Monday.
Despite the year's end looming, your tax fate is not yet sealed - there are still some chances to optimize your tax filing and save some money, says the nation's largest state accountant group.
A quarter century after the Reagan revolution and a dozen years after Republicans vaulted into control of Congress, a new CNN poll finds most Americans still agree with the bedrock conservative premise that, as the Gipper put it, "government is not the answer to our problems -- government is the problem."
Three years after U.S. forces invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, the cost--in both lives and dollars--continues to mount.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Say you and your spouse want to relocate to a new city.
So you found a new job and it pays more than your old one.
Hurricane Katrina will cost the nation 400,000 jobs by the end of the year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. To put that in perspective, employment in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast totaled about 775,000 at the end of 2004.
It's less than two weeks since one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, yet the stock market has shown a resilience that many market watchers hope the economy will show as well.
Hurricane Katrina shook the business world for the second week, as energy prices remained in the spotlight and aid packages began to unfold.
The budget deficit will be about $331 billion this year, down from March's estimate of $365 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said in a new forecast released Monday morning.
The captains of American corporate life could learn much about how real leaders treat their troops from the captains and the lieutenants of the United States Marine Corps.
The federal agency insuring private-sector pension plans that have promised benefits to about 44 million employees and retirees could see its own shortfall more than triple in the next decade, a congressional agency said Thursday.
When George W. Bush submitted his whopping $2.57 trillion proposal to Congress last week, it showed how the war on terrorism has come home to roost.
Wealthier Americans should take the hit to bolster Social Security, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted over the weekend and released Tuesday.
The federal budget deficit is projected to hit $368 billion in fiscal 2005, bigger than earlier forecasts, but then decline to $295 billion in 2006, according to new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Many who say Social Security is in crisis suggest overhauling the system by partially privatizing it, allowing workers to invest some of their Social Security taxes in personal investment accounts.
In a report released Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revised its projection for the country's budgetary shortfalls, lowering its previous forecast for fiscal years 2004 and 2005 but raising its estimates for cumulative 10-year deficits by $281 billion.
Early on Thursday morning last week, Republican congressional staffers began receiving telephone calls from journalists asking about the new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Social Security could have a life longer than previously expected, a congressional report said on Monday.
President Bush said Friday the news that his Medicare overhaul would cost significantly more than expected would require lawmakers to be careful with spending.
Long-term U.S. Treasury prices traded higher Thursday after several economic reports portrayed a mixed economic picture and a Federal Reserve Board governor said inflation would remain low.
The Congressional Budget Office's first review for the 2004 fiscal year will likely spotlight the ballooning federal deficit. Economists expect the CBO's analysis to show that the budget gap will h...
You'd have to have a deficit of the attention kind to have missed the recent news that the U.S. government is again solidly in the red. Headlines blared that the federal budget deficit will swell t...
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 ...
Wanna hear some good news about the economy? Then stop reading. Because what follows is one more reason to crawl into bed and dream of 1999.
No one in Washington seems to worry about budget deficits anymore--no one, that is, except the Congressional Budget Office. Its recent study Long-Term Budgetary Pressures and Policy Options describ...
There they go again. Talking about new initiatives for health insurance. Making plans to spend billions on schools. Drafting proposals to replace municipal water systems and decrepit bridges. Float...
Now that the Clinton Administration's phony budget numbers are in, and the Republicans' phony budget numbers are being prepared, the verdict is also in. Both parties are reaching the same phony con...
This year's Congress has a chance to do something truly historic: to vote for a constitutional amendment requiring the U. S. government to balance the budget by the year 2002. It would write a nice...
There hasn't been much to like about the budget showdown between the Republican Congress and the Clinton White House--unless you're a connoisseur of cheap theatrics, schoolyard gamesmanship, and wh...
The biggest programs seem untouchable. Everybody wants to dump foreign aid, which would make barely a dent in the deficit.
AMERICAN business may be rapidly metamorphosing from the auto age to the information age, but the federal government seems stuck somewhere in the cotton era. The Agriculture Department, to cite one...
DO YOU remember David Stockman's famous warning that America was in danger of having ''$200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see''? That prediction was supposed to shock us when, as Ronald Re...
Choose sides, then duck. May's Editor's Notes reported that House Ways and Means chairman Dan Rostenkowski had reacted negatively to your letters urging repeal of the new 20% withholding tax on cer...
When MONEY readers recommend trimming the fat in Washington, they're not talking about President Clinton's waistline. More than 10,000 of you responded to our April poll, which asked, "What cuts wo...
You asked for it. In response to January's MONEY poll -- ''Which Taxes Would You Be Willing to Pay to Cut the Federal Deficit?'' -- Ron Tuttle of Redmond, Wash. wrote: ''This is no fun at all. Give...
Get ready for Act II of Clintonomics -- the First Lady's task force on health care. A key question: Will Hillary emulate Hammurabi, the Babylonian ruler who slapped on history's first-recorded pric...
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 ...
MOST Americans don't think they need an economist to tell them the nation has been underinvesting in its infrastructure. They can feel the evidence when they bounce through a pothole and see it in ...
In the four months since Congress decided not to extend funding for the S&L bailout, disposing of insolvent thrifts has ground to a costly standstill. This means the U.S. can't pay off depositors a...
1% BILL BYRNE'S life story is an American classic -- humble farm boy makes good by working his tail off. He grew up on a 240-acre hog farm in Pocahontas County, Iowa, the oldest of six, and put in ...
Read the lips of the major presidential candidates and you won't learn much about how they'd tackle the enormous budget deficit if they are elected -- or reelected. But many economists, including F...
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...
IS AN S&L-SIZE DISASTER brewing among America's commercial banks? With banks already failing at the highest rate since the Great Depression, both the Congressional Budget Office and the General Acc...
Lip reading will never be the same again. Neither, for that matter, will your taxes. They're going up, all right, but unless you happen to be a hard- drinking, hard-smoking muscle-car owner who pul...
A low-deficit dinner is being prepared and despite wide Republican protest, increased taxes are on the table. President Bush has agreed to meet with congressional leaders for a budget summit, sayin...
The rewards of sin tax If excise taxes on the following products were adjusted slightly next year as shown here -- a huff here, a puff there -- the Congressional Budget Office figures that the $113...
Balancing the federal budget is like getting 17 acrobats astraddle one bicycle -- painfully difficult but not impossible. Barring a major recession or a military crisis, projections by the Congress...
CYNICS -- or idealists -- might call them profiles in cowardice. Both George Bush and Michael Dukakis promise that as President they would make deficit reduction their No. 1 economic priority. But ...
A fellow could get a touch of cognitive dissonance brooding over the material in Trends in Family Income: 1970-1986, the latest unsnappily titled publication of the Congressional Budget Office. The...
WHEN FORTUNE PREDICTED slow growth in its 18-month forecast at the beginning of the year, oil prices were $27 a barrel and heading gently downward. Now that oil has collapsed, FORTUNE has gone back...
Half-baked as it is, Jerry Brown's flat tax idea has provided the single most useful economic proposal of the presidential campaign so far. Why not get rid of the rat's nest that is the Internal Re...
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