Federal Budget

WASHINGTON - The House voted Tuesday to pass a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package, despite a disagreement over $1.4 billion for President Donald Trump's wall along the U.S. Mexico border. The two-bill package ballooned to some 2,371 pages after several... Read More

WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators agreed to spend $25 million to study gun violence in America next year, the first time in more than two decades that federal funds will be dedicated to researching the contentious issue. The National Institutes of... Read More

WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats reached agreement “in principle” Thursday on $1.37 trillion in government funding, staving off the possibility of another shutdown just a week before spending is set to run out, according to Appropriations Committee leaders. The deal... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House passage of the National Defense Authorization Act means many things to many people, but to the residents of one region in Upstate New York, the massive spending bill means one thing: good-paying jobs for the foreseeable... Read More

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday approved a sweeping $738 billion defense policy bill that for the first time will provide paid family leave for all federal workers and fund the creation of a Space Force, a top priority of... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan coalition of House members sent a letter to House and Senate leadership Thursday calling for an agreement that will fully fund the federal government through the end of fiscal year 2020. The letter was signed by... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats on Thursday threw their support behind H.R. 5211, The Sustainable Budget Act of 2019, which would create a fiscal commission charged with balancing the federal budget within a decade. The bill... Read More

WASHINGTON - In a divisive political era, Rep. Scott Peters, a California Democrat, still manages to find a way to reach across the aisle to get things done. Whether it’s introducing legislation to make cost-effective biosimilar drugs more accessible, leading... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats on Thursday endorsed a proposal to create congressional committees specifically tasked to restore and strengthen endangered federal trust funds. The coalition of fiscally-responsible, centrist Democrats said in a statement that without... Read More

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders are insisting that all 12 overdue spending bills for the current fiscal year must be finalized before any of them can reach the floor, according to sources familiar with strategy talks. The demand for some... Read More

WASHINGTON — Congress returns to Washington this week with a challenging to-do list for December that not only includes drafting articles of impeachment and finalizing a massive trade deal, but also funding the government. Appropriators and congressional leadership have just... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition is again urging the House leadership and committee chairs to abide by the bipartisan "Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) rule, which requires Congress to pay for new priorities. The letter sent Monday is the second the coalition... Read More

WASHINGTON— The House passed a short-term spending bill Tuesday that would keep federal agencies running for another month, but at least one group of House Democrats, the Blue Dog Coalition, said having Congress "lurching from one self-imposed deadline to another... Read More

WASHINGTON — Congress plans to extend government funding through Dec. 20, averting the risk of a shutdown next week but setting up a potential spending fight amid likely impeachment votes before the end of the year, according to lawmakers and... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former Congressman and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford suspended his longshot campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, explaining that sometimes "you've got to be a realist." Standing outside the New Hampshire statehouse while holding an oversized trillion-dollar... Read More

WASHINGTON — Congress could navigate a shutdown and a presidential impeachment inquiry if lawmakers and the Trump administration can’t reach an agreement on government funding during the next three weeks. The two events haven’t overlapped before in the nation’s history.... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal deficit for fiscal year 2019 was $984 billion, $205 billion more than in the prior fiscal year, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Friday afternoon. The final accounting from the Treasury Department of the Office of Management... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget debuted a new tool Thursday -- a PAYGO Tracker -- to keep tabs on how well lawmakers are abiding by budget rules requiring new spending and tax cuts to be offset.... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal deficit reached $984 billion in fiscal year 2019, with spending far out pacing revenue, according to an estimate released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this week. This would be an increase of $205 billion over... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition on Friday endorsed H.R. 3830, the Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act, a bipartisan bill that would provide Americans with more information on how federal tax dollars are being spent and help eliminate duplicative and wasteful government... Read More

WASHINGTON - A House panel charged with improving Congress's procedures and performance took a hard look Thursday at one of the government's most difficult exercises, the annual budget and appropriations process. Last year, the Joint Select Committee on Budget and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The cost of renovating of the Cannon House Office Building could rise to $100 million more than originally planned due to the discovery of hazardous materials in the historic building and plan changes over time, the inspector general... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Thursday that a continuing resolution will be necessary to keep the government funded past Oct. 1 and prevent the second shutdown in less than a year. In a letter to House... Read More

WASHINGTON - On the one hand, it's easy to see why some in the party would embrace so-called "free" or "debt-free" college and the forgiveness of student loans. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,  electrified younger voters with his ambitious proposals in... Read More

WASHINGTON - What it comes down to is this: Despite many in the media trumpeting the "fact" that all the momentum in the Democratic Party in 2018 was on the far-left, mid-term voters overwhelmingly endorsed moderates, rewarding their common-sense approach... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal budget deficit is growing faster than expected and will reach $1 trillion next year, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. Worse, over the next decade, the federal government will rack up $12.2 trillion in deficits... Read More

WASHINGTON - Back home in South Carolina after a mid-week trip to New Hampshire, former Rep. Mark Sanford said Friday he was pleased with how things went in the Granite State and his decision on whether to mount a primary... Read More

The Trump administration's decision to put a temporary hold on the majority of congressionally approved foreign aid funds, drew a sharp rebuke from the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Wednesday. “This Administration's contempt for Congress is astounding,”... Read More

WASHINGTON - Despite pushback from conservative Republicans, the budget and debt ceiling deal struck by the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., easily passed the Senate Thursday afternoon. Even with fears that the vote in the Senate would... Read More

WASHINGTON - If anyone doubted there's serious interest in getting a handle on the nation's debt and the federal budget, the standing room-only crowd that jammed a hearing room in the Longworth House Office Building Thursday afternoon would have quickly... Read More