WASHINGTON — Americans are getting an election-year tax present. Congress voted with rare speed and cooperation Friday to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and to renew unemployment benefits for millions more who haven’t seen a paycheck in six months.
President Obama was in Ohio this week, speaking in the Cleveland area about the state of the nation’s economy. He surprised reporters (and no doubt Congressional Republicans as well) when he announced that he was appointing former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as head of the new federal consumer financial protection bureau.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top House Republicans rebelled Sunday against a bipartisan, Senate-approved bill extending payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for two months.
WASHINGTON — Republican congressional leaders stressed a willingness Wednesday to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut due to expire Dec. 31, setting up a year-end clash with Democrats over how to pay for a provision at the heart of President Barack Obama’s jobs program.
WASHINGTON — Despite President Barack Obama’s exhortations, the Senate prepared to swiftly kill his jobs package Tuesday and the White House and congressional leaders were already moving on to other ways to cut the nation’s painfully high unemployment without raising taxes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — One crisis averted, on to the next. The day after Congress managed to avoid a government shutdown — again — Republicans and Democrats stared ahead Tuesday at major fights over spending that underscore a deep divide that’s sure to define the fast-approaching national elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The special panel’s goal is lofty: concoct a deal both parties will embrace to slash federal deficits by a mammoth $1.5 trillion or more over the next decade.
Facing a dire warning from a credit rating agency, the Obama administration lobbied some of Congress’ most conservative members Thursday for an increase in the nation’s debt limit. Republicans responded that the surest way to reassure financial markets was to enact deep deficit cuts.