With the balance of power shifting in Washington, the head of the new consumer protection bureau is already fending off detractors about the agency's role. 

Elizabeth Warren, tapped by President Obama to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is arguing that stagnant wages and rising core expenses have pushed many families "over the edge financially" and that the new agency can eliminate "fine print" that has plagued the consumer credit system. 

She expressed surprise about a push to dismantle the agency before it's up and running. 

"I have to say I'm really surprised by this move," she said on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show." 

She said it has taken 50 years "before anyone started chipping seriously away at the new reforms that had been put in place to protect us."

"Now, here we're coming out of — we hope coming out of another great recession — we've passed serious reform, and it's just a matter of months until people are talking about how to undercut this new commercial financial protection agency," she said.

Cantor, Hatch said Republicans won't agree to Obama proposal to "decouple" tax rate extensions.

The Chrysler Group LLC has joined the Ford Motor Co. in publicly opposing a trade deal with South Korea.

U.S. and South Korean trade negotiators on Tuesday entered another day of talks on the controversial agreement ahead of a visit to South Korea by President Obama that begins on Monday.

The two auto companies oppose the deal because they said it would allow greater access to the U.S. market for South Korean auto products without doing enough to open the Korean market. South Korea enjoys a heavy trade advantage over the U.S. in automobiles. 

Sens. Carper, Voinovich say debt commission should consider 25-cent gas tax increase for infrastructure.

U.S. and South Korean officials met Monday in search of an accord on a long-delayed free-trade agreement ahead of the Group of 20 meeting. 

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk met Monday with South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon before President Obama is set to meet with his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak in Seoul on Thursday. 

"Negotiations are still under way, and the situation is fluid," Kim told reporters today. They plan to meet again Tuesday, he said. 

Kirk didn't meet with reporters but released a statement confirming the Tuesday meeting. 

House Ways and Means Chairman-to-be Dave Camp (R-Mich.) is making his case for repealing and replacing the healthcare overhaul, touting his own version of a bill that he says would reduce premiums. 

In a USA Today editorial, Camp said the House Republican alternative was the only bill certified by the Congressional Budget Office "as reducing premiums across the board by up to 10 percent."

"By putting an end to junk lawsuits, encouraging small businesses to band together to provide health plans, forcing insurance companies to compete by allowing Americans to shop across state lines, and giving states the flexibility to make changes that best meet the needs of their residents, we can reduce premiums and still provide important patient protections," Camp said in the editorial. 

The Republican plan also would guarantee that those with pre-existing conditions can obtain affordable coverage, prohibit insurers from "unjustly canceling policies" and allow dependents to remain on their parents' policies through age 25, he said.

"We can reform health care, provide better patient protections and lower costs. It doesn't take $1 trillion in new government spending, $500 billion in new taxes and $500 billion in cuts to Medicare over the next decade," he said. 

President Obama called the Federal Reserve's plan to purchase $600 billion in Treasuries growth friendly for the global economy after criticism from several nations. 

China and Russia, among other countries, criticized the move ahead of this week's Group of 20 meeting, arguing that more quantitative easing could depress the dollar and destabilize the flow of money into emerging economies. 

"I will say that the Fed's mandate, my mandate, is to grow our economy. And that's not just good for the United States, that's good for the world as a whole," Obama said during his trip to India.

"And the worst thing that could happen to the world economy, not just ours, is if we end up being stuck with no growth or very limited growth," he said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Monday he is "very confident" that the leaders of the world's largest economies, including China, will agree on a framework to rebalance the global economy. 

As currency and trade issues dominate the global economic landscape, Geithner said he expects an agreement between world leaders on allowing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide "indicative guidelines" during the Group of 20 meeting later this week. 

"We're going to try to build a closer agreement for cooperation on exchange rate questions and on growth," Geithner said at an event in India today. 

"I'm very confident that you're going to see very strong consensus on this basic framework because it meets the basic tests and it's better than the alternatives." 

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), who is set to take over the House Budget Committee next year, said federal spending has increased a whopping 84 percent under President Obama.

The budget for the Environmental Protection Agency has increased by 124 percent under Obama, according to Ryan, who counted stimulus spending in his analysis.

Ryan and other Republicans are calling for a $100 billion cut in non-defense discretionary spending to bring it back to 2008 levels.

“There have been so many massive spending increases, 24 percent in the base budget, 84 percent when you add the stimulus,” Ryan said in an interview on Fox News Sunday.

“We have had spending on a gusher. And if borrowing and spending and taxing and spending actually created jobs and produced prosperity, we wouldn’t have all this joblessness,” he said.

Democrats have warned that the spending reductions Republicans have called for will cut $6 billion from the National Institutes of Health and force the layoffs of more than 2,000 FBI agents.

Ryan dismissed the criticism as the “Washington Monument strategy,” which is to put a spotlight on the most unpopular cuts.

“You’re going to have these kinds of tactics being played, which will show you that they’re really not serious about getting spending under control,” he said of the Democrats.

Ryan is the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee. He is expected to take over as chairman in January.

He pledged to take the federal budget in a new direction, claiming the Republican pick-up of more than 60 House seats as a political mandate.

“This is an electoral repudiation,” he said.

He said his hope is to reduce future spending levels and “prevent a huge tax increase from happening in the future so we can get job creation,” he said.