'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
He doesn't utter discredited terms such as "stimulus" or "shovel-ready" anymore, but President Obama renewed his push Monday for at least $50 billion more in spending on roads and bridges as he introduced his pick for secretary of transportation.
While the Pentagon will take the brunt of the $85 billion across-the-board automatic spending cuts scheduled to kick in March 1, about half of the "sequesters" are poised to bite domestic programs — from child-nutrition programs to air-traffic control to the Internal Revenue Service.
When the new Congress cranks up in January, there will be more women, many new faces and 11 fewer tea party-backed House Republicans from the class of 2010 who sought a second term.
Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland remembers a time two decades ago when things moved quickly in Washington and Democrats and Republicans weren't constantly at each other's throats.
Amid all the unbridled partisanship and naysaying about Washington gridlock, a glimmer of consensus has begun to develop in Congress around the herculean task of fixing the nation's tax code.
Amid all the unbridled partisanship and naysaying about Washington gridlock, a glimmer of consensus has begun to develop in Congress around the herculean task of fixing the nation's tax code.
House Republicans powered their 2013 budget through their chamber Thursday, marking the high point for the $3.5 trillion spending plan, which would have created a deficit of nearly $800 billion next year.
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission called Wednesday for the private sector to help secure U.S. Internet infrastructure from criminals, hackers and terrorists.
America may be a technology-driven nation, but the health care system's conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue.
The U.S. military and the CIA failed to agree on implementing a key recommendation of the commission that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks: Give special-operations commandos the lead for all covert military action.
Horror stories are flying about the damage that might be wreaked should Congress and President Obama fail to cut a deal by the Aug. 2 deadline to increase America's borrowing limit. Nearly every American is in harm's way, either directly or indirectly.
Ten years ago, former President George W. Bush's signature education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, garnered strong bipartisan support and passed the Senate on an 87-10 vote. As Congress now starts work on a policy overhaul, that "planetary alignment" between the parties is nowhere to be found.
A bipartisan task force on Wednesday called for Congress and President Obama to enact a Social Security payroll tax holiday and a "debt-reduction sales tax" as part of a sweeping plan aimed at getting the government's financial house in order.
While public attention was diverted by whether or not Florida pastor Terry Jones and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf had reached a compromise, a report critical to our national security went virtually unnoticed. Mr. Jones, under some pressure from most of the civilized world, offered to withdraw his threat to immolate a stack of Korans in exchange for Mr. Rauf's relocation of Park 51 - the planned mosque complex he proposes to tower over the World Trade Center site. Understandably, the press preferred to cover the spectacle between Mr. Jones and Mr. Rauf, especially as it played out on live television like a bizarre parody of "Let's Make a Deal."
