Federal Budget

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden traveled to Capitol Hill on Monday for a working lunch with Senate Democrats, a day after party leaders announced a compromise, $3.5 trillion budget deal that pours federal dollars into a slew of climate change... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats announced late Tuesday that they'd reached a budget agreement envisioning spending an enormous $3.5 trillion over the coming decade, paving the way for their drive to pour federal resources into climate change, health care and... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats and immigration advocates are staring at their best chance in years to overcome Republican opposition and give millions of people in the U.S. without legal authorization a way to become citizens. Their goal is to... Read More

WASHINGTON - Nine in 10 registered voters want federal infrastructure plans to be paid for with offsets, including clearly identified spending cuts or revenue raisers, a new Peterson Foundation poll found. And the result holds true for 86% of Democrats,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm requested $201 million in additional funds to fortify her department’s cybersecurity defenses in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Granholm’s request came in response to a ransomware attack on an... Read More

WASHINGTON- The Biden Administration's 2022 budget, released at the end of last week, seeks significant spending increases for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  The fiscal year 2022 budget request sets out $6.5 billion for the FDA, an increase of... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's $6 trillion budget proposal for next year would run a $1.8 trillion federal government deficit despite a raft of new tax increases on corporations and high-income people designed to pay for his ambitious spending... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden unveiled a $1.5 trillion budget proposal for the 2022 fiscal year, that among other things, includes a 16% increase in non-defense spending. In his first budget proposal as president, Biden is asking Congress for $753... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office released its long-term budget outlook last week projecting federal debt held by the public will exceed the nation’s gross domestic product by the year’s end.  The CBO painted a complicated picture in its analysis... Read More

WASHINGTON — National Health Care Expenditures in the United States continue to grow at rates outpacing the broader economy. But there isn’t just broad agreement among the public and policymakers that healthcare is unaffordable. Many argue that patients aren’t even... Read More

BALTIMORE (AP) — To pay out his coronavirus relief package, President Joe Biden must spend an average of $3.7 billion every day for the rest of this year. That's $43,000 every second of every day until midnight chimes on 2022.   For the... Read More

WASHINGTON - A Congressional Budget Office report estimating that persistent budget deficits will cause the federal debt to double in size over the next 30 years, "provides a troubling snapshot of America’s fiscal outlook, which we know will only get... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats renewed their push to permanently expand and "improve" the Child Tax Credit, but a prominent fiscal watchdog warns that while the proposal deserves consideration, it must be fully paid for under the House PAYGO rules and... Read More

WASHINGTON - It's the buzzword of everyone wanting to bypass GOP resistance and pass President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, and it could upend decades of precedent when it comes to the federal budget process. The word is... Read More

WASHINGTON — House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., released the text of a $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill Monday afternoon consisting of all 12 fiscal year 2021 appropriations bills, $900 billion coronavirus relief, and other authorizations. In addition to... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House has passed a week-long stopgap bill to keep the government open through Dec. 18 so lawmakers can continue to negotiate both a longer-term spending package and coronavirus relief. The bill passed 343-67. If the stopgap measure... Read More

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers were finalizing a one-week stopgap funding measure Tuesday to avoid a partial government shutdown starting Friday at midnight, with the only add-ons expected to be a package of expiring health care program extensions, according to Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby.... Read More

Congress returned Monday from its Thanksgiving break hoping to avoid a government shutdown looming at the end of next week — with President Donald Trump being a potential wild card. Hopes for a new coronavirus stimulus package are slim as lawmakers focus on the more... Read More

WASHINGTON — Top appropriators reached bipartisan agreement Tuesday on a framework for an omnibus spending package that would avoid a partial government shutdown next month. The compromise forged between the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees sets spending allocations for the... Read More

WASHINGTON - With over 10.5 million Americans so far infected with COVID-19, the U.S. health care system’s focus has understandably been on strategies for combating the virus. Yet when the nation is finally able to shift back to handling longer-term... Read More

WASHINGTON -- With Congress considering significant health care reforms, including creating a government-run health insurance plan called the public option, a new study shows that it could be significantly more expensive than previously estimated. The study, released by Lanhee J.... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an independent non-profit organization, released its anticipated report on the estimated costs of both Trump’s and Biden’s campaign plans last week. Not surprisingly, they are very expensive plans.  Both candidates have... Read More

WASHINGTON. – U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Angus King, I-Maine, reintroduced their bipartisan legislation to save taxpayer dollars by reducing the federal funding available for the acquisition and leasing of new federal vehicles. The Domestic Reduction... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted to advance a stopgap spending bill Tuesday night, the penultimate step to avoiding a government shutdown at midnight Wednesday. The vote to limit debate on the measure paves the way for a final vote in... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office recently released two new outlook reports. These projections are an update of the U.S. deficit, debt, spending, and revenue over the next decade and beyond, given current laws in place. The pair of reports... Read More

WASHINGTON — The House swiftly passed a stopgap funding measure needed to avert a partial government shutdown in eight days after top congressional leaders reached a deal resolving a fight over farm payments. On a lopsided vote of 359-57, the... Read More

WASHINGTON – The federal debt owed by the United States government is expected to grow over the next 30 years to almost twice the size of the nation’s economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s Long-Term Budget Outlook report. While... Read More

WASHINGTON — The House will vote Tuesday on a short-term funding bill written by majority Democrats without support from Republicans, increasing the odds of a partial government shutdown in less than 10 days when current spending authority expires. The Democrats’... Read More

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have agreed to work to avoid a government shutdown right before the election, and not let the stalemate over virus-relief legislation hold up a vital stopgap spending bill. Their... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved a $1.3 trillion spending package which includes bills to fund almost all of the federal government while providing an additional $500 million for election security. The so-called minibus passed 217-197... Read More