The bipartisan deal to avert a government default this week featured modest cuts to a relatively small corner of the federal budget. As a curb on the growth of the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt load, it was a minor breakthrough, at best. It also showed how difficult — perhaps impossible — it could be for […]
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Speaker Kevin McCarthy toiled on Wednesday to lock down the votes to pass his deal with President Biden to lift the debt ceiling and set federal spending limits, as a stream of defections from hard-right lawmakers put the fate of the measure in question. With the nation’s first-ever default looming in days, the House was […]
Read MoreLast summer, in a meeting with business and labor leaders as Congress prepared to vote on the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden argued that it would result in “the largest investment ever in clean energy and American energy security — the largest in our history.” He added, “It will be the largest investment in […]
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No one walked away satisfied by the agreement reached late Saturday to raise the debt ceiling: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not win the most destructive cuts sought by the right, and the Democratic proposals to raise revenue never seriously entered the conversation. Yet with the risk of ruinous economic default less than a week […]
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As their debt limit negotiations with President Biden push the nation perilously close to a devastating default, House Republicans have stuck to a clear message: They must force a change in what they call the nation’s “unsustainable” spending path. Yet in talks with Mr. Biden, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his lieutenants have focused almost entirely […]
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Seen from outside Washington, the debt ceiling battle might seem like an abstract argument between the political parties over federal spending and deficits. But for millions of low-income Americans who depend on the federal government for health care and basic nutrition, the debate is about their very lives. That’s because Republicans have singled them out, […]
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The Congressional Budget Office said on Friday that there was a “significant risk” that the federal government could run out of cash sometime in the first two weeks of June, setting the United States up for a default. The warning came as the White House and congressional leaders spent the week in negotiations over how […]
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President Biden is set to welcome Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other top congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday for a pivotal round of discussions about the nation’s taxes, spending and debt as a potentially catastrophic government default rapidly approaches. The talks come just weeks before the United States is expected to run out […]
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WASHINGTON — Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California has repeatedly said that he and his fellow House Republicans are refusing to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, and risking economic catastrophe, to force a reckoning on America’s $31 trillion national debt. “Without exaggeration, America’s debt is a ticking time bomb that will detonate unless we take serious, […]
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WASHINGTON — House Republicans demanding spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit have rallied around a seemingly straightforward proposal: recalling billions of dollars in coronavirus relief funds that Congress approved but have not been spent. Top Republicans regard the idea of rescinding unspent pandemic emergency money — an amount estimated to be […]
Read More WASHINGTON — House Republicans demanding spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit have rallied around a seemingly straightforward proposal: recalling billions of dollars in coronavirus relief funds that Congress approved but have not been spent. Top Republicans regard the idea of rescinding unspent pandemic emergency money — an amount estimated to be […]
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Gratitude should lead us to make sure that older Americans can live comfortably in retirement. Solicitude should lead us to do so in ways that do not needlessly leave the next generation less prosperous than it could be. Those should be the terms of our debates about Social Security and Medicare. And they would clearly […]
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“The country wants common sense; they don’t want extremism and I think the president gets that,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “And the country wants fiscal responsibility and the president, in taking on the deficit, understands that.” Some on the left end of his party rejected the idea that these goals were in conflict. Representative Pramila Jayapal, […]
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The director of the budget office, Phillip L. Swagel, briefed lawmakers about deficit projections on Wednesday at the Capitol, warning they would eventually need to raise taxes, cut spending or both in order to mitigate rising debt. The office’s projections “suggest that, over the long term, changes in fiscal policy would need to be made […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday will propose policies aimed at trimming federal budget deficits by $3 trillion over the next 10 years as his administration embraces the politics of debt reduction amid a fight with Republicans over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. Mr. Biden’s plans, which will […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday will propose policies aimed at trimming federal budget deficits by at least $2 trillion over the next 10 years as his administration embraces the politics of debt reduction amid a fight with Republicans over raising the nation’s borrowing limit. Mr. Biden’s plans, which will be detailed as part of […]
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Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, said the sums involved were legally significant. “That seems to favor the argument that this is a major question,” she said. The law the administration relied on, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, usually called the HEROES Act, gives the secretary of education the power […]
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday over the legality of one of the most ambitious and expensive executive actions in the nation’s history: the Biden administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt because of the coronavirus pandemic. The administration faces a conservative court that has been […]
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In his State of the Union speech this month, President Biden pledged to block any reductions in scheduled Social Security and Medicare benefits. He also promised that any tax increases would be limited to families that earn more than $400,000 — roughly the top-earning 2 percent of American families. Together, these promises are almost certainly […]
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WASHINGTON — A sweeping new entitlement program to provide medical care to millions of veterans who may have been exposed to trash burn pits on U.S. military bases around the world may increase federal spending on veterans by at least $400 billion and as much as $789 billion over a decade, according to the official […]
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“Not ready for human contact”? Microsoft’s decision last month to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, makers of the chatbot sensation ChatGPT, has been a boon for investors. The stock has jumped more than 12 percent in that period, adding nearly $250 billion to Microsoft’s market cap, on hopes that the underlying technology would live up […]
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WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department’s ability to continue paying its bills and prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt could be exhausted sometime between July and September if Congress does not raise or suspend the cap on how much the nation can borrow, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. The estimate […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden scored an early political point this month in his fight with congressional Republicans over taxes, spending and raising the federal debt limit: He forced Republican leaders to profess, repeatedly, that they will not seek cuts to Social Security and Medicare. In the process, Mr. Biden has effectively steered a debate about […]
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