Budget

The No. 2 Democrat in the House on Tuesday slammed an upcoming vote that would raise the debt ceiling without any corresponding deficit cuts, calling it a political stunt by the GOP.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called the House vote, which is expected later Tuesday and is widely expected to fail, “unfortunate” and said it ran counter to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) declaration that lawmakers needed to have an “adult conversation” on the debt limit. 

“This is not going to be an adult moment,” the Maryland Democrat said of the vote, which would raise the debt ceiling more than $2 trillion, and which Republicans say is meant to show that a so-called “clean” increase of the debt ceiling cannot move through Congress.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has again stated in an opinion essay that he will not support a budget plan that contains more spending cuts than tax increases on the wealthy.

This month, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) decided not to mark up a Democratic budget resolution, saying he wanted to wait until deficit talks led by Vice President Biden produce a compromise.

It had become clear to sources that Democrats on the committee could not agree on the mix of tax increases and spending cuts.

Sanders first told The Hill of his demand for an equal number of tax increases to spending cuts in early May.

"As Vermont's senator and a member of the Budget Committee, I will not support a plan to reduce the deficit that does not call for shared sacrifice. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction plan must come from increased revenue from the wealthy and large corporations," Sanders says in a Tuesday opinion piece done for the McClatchy-Tribune News Service.

"The Republican House budget is the most radical right-wing extremist budget ever passed in the modern history of our country, and the more the American people learn about it the more they are rejecting it. The question is, however: Where are the Democrats? Where is President Obama?" he asks, before laying out his proposals to tackle the deficit.

Economists are losing faith as the economic recovery loses steam.

Frustration is mounting as the nation struggles to shake off its recession headache.

A large driver of that pessimism is the consistent struggles of the housing market — and new home price data out today is not expected to come to the rescue.

Rentals are on the rise.

A new study indicates that closing down tax breaks might not reap as much revenue as once thought.

The nation’s economic growth and first-time applications for unemployment have disappointed.

Rep. Mike Ross said Rep. Paul Ryan tried to enlist support from the Blue Dogs for his budget proposal.

A House Ways and Means subcommittee is set to examine Social Security next Friday, after Democrats and Republicans had sharply different responses to a recent trustees report on the entitlement program. 

The trustees reported that Social Security’s trust fund would be depleted in 2036, a year earlier than they had said in 2010. But the report also said the program would still be able to pay at least three-fourths of promised benefits for the next 75 years. 

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) says he expects negotiators to agree on a deficit-reduction plan that would get the debt ceiling raised — but only in the nick of time.

Clyburn, the House’s No. 3 Democrat, also said he hopes the talks he and other lawmakers are having with Vice President Biden and administration officials would roll back deficits between $3 trillion and $6 trillion over a decade.

The Treasury Department has said the country risks defaulting on its debts unless Congress increases the $14.3 trillion debt limit in the next two months or so.

“We’ve been given until Aug. 2 to get this done without any harm being done to the country, and I suspect — Congress usually takes all the time it has,” Clyburn told Bloomberg Television’s Al Hunt, in an interview set to run this weekend. 

More investors are buying insurance against a default of U.S. debt.

The government's bailout of U.S. automakers meant those companies did not have to pay damages from car accidents.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.): Naming the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau via recess appointment would violate the Constitution.

Policymakers might be too optimistic on the economic turnaround.

A lenient disability judge has been put on leave.

An administration official appointed under President George W. Bush urged Congress to raise the debt limit Thursday, saying a failure to do so would be "calamitous."

Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), became the latest administration official to call for a hike in the $14.3 trillion debt limit before the government defaults Aug. 2.

Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, she warned that investor confidence in the ability of the federal government to pay on its obligation is "absolutely vital to domestic and global financial stability and cannot be taken for granted."

A group of 17 Senate Republicans has sent a direct message to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — if the U.S. defaults, it will be your fault.

In a letter sent to Geithner Thursday, the conservative group, led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), asserted that the Treasury can avoid a default even after the debt limit is hit. Geithner's repeated claims that the only way to steer clear of a catastrophic default is a debt-limit increase is "irresponsible," they said, and sows "the seeds of doubt in the market regarding the full faith and credit of the United States."

The letter marks the latest push by Republicans to defuse administration threats on the debt limit, as they seek to gain major spending reforms in exchange for a vote to approve an increase. The government reached the $14.3 trillion debt limit on May 16, but the Treasury says it has taken steps to avoid a default until Aug. 2.