The Senate will vote Saturday on opening debate on the sweeping health care bill introduced by Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday.
America's national debt cannot grow beyond a limit imposed by Congress known as the "debt ceiling."
Regardless of the outcome of the health care reform effort, the difficult issue of cutting the federal budget deficit is likely to move front and center in 2010.
Left to their own devices, lawmakers won't successfully deal with the country's spiraling debt situation. That's the opinion of some key members agitating for a special commission to force the hand of Congress.
Economic growth and job creation remain the government's top priority, despite a federal deficit that is "too high," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
The government is finding no shortage of willing buyers for its debt as the shaky economy continues to spur demand for safe haven assets.
Longer term treasurys advanced Wednesday after the government sold $41 billion in 5-year notes, as economic fears boosted demand for the safety of U.S. debt.
Gold continued to push higher into record territory Wednesday amid concerns about a weak dollar, inflation and technical-based buying by large investment funds.
It looks as if China still can't get enough of one of America's finest exports: our debt.
Congress has raised the debt ceiling four times in the past two years and will probably have to do it again in the next month.
The Senate will vote Saturday on opening debate on the sweeping health care bill introduced by Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday.
America's national debt cannot grow beyond a limit imposed by Congress known as the "debt ceiling."
Regardless of the outcome of the health care reform effort, the difficult issue of cutting the federal budget deficit is likely to move front and center in 2010.
Left to their own devices, lawmakers won't successfully deal with the country's spiraling debt situation. That's the opinion of some key members agitating for a special commission to force the hand of Congress.
Economic growth and job creation remain the government's top priority, despite a federal deficit that is "too high," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
The government is finding no shortage of willing buyers for its debt as the shaky economy continues to spur demand for safe haven assets.
Longer term treasurys advanced Wednesday after the government sold $41 billion in 5-year notes, as economic fears boosted demand for the safety of U.S. debt.
Gold continued to push higher into record territory Wednesday amid concerns about a weak dollar, inflation and technical-based buying by large investment funds.
It looks as if China still can't get enough of one of America's finest exports: our debt.
Congress has raised the debt ceiling four times in the past two years and will probably have to do it again in the next month.
In just over a month, the federal government's fiscal year will draw to a close, leaving in its wake one of the biggest annual deficits in U.S. history -- and a forecast of more record debt to come.
The U.S. economy is no longer on the edge of collapse, but Americans face tough choices in reducing the national deficit, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday.
The promise of health reform is to make care more accessible for everybody -- and to reduce the federal deficit by slowing the growth rate in costs.
The federal government is likely to spend $835 billion this year fighting the crises in the financial system and the economy, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office.
Three new national polls suggest President Obama is more popular than his policies. Two of those surveys, by NBC-Wall Street Journal and CBS-New York Times, also indicate concerns over the federal deficit are growing.
President Obama urged Congress to adopt a "pay-as-you-go" approach to federal spending in order to restore fiscal discipline, but critics say the president's call lacks credibility.
Treasury yields soared - with the benchmark 10-year yield briefly touching 4% - after the government sold $19 billion of 10-year notes and Russia said it would reduce its share of U.S. debt.
For many people, the most shocking aspect of the financial crisis is that something of this scale could happen at all. Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that the rise of globalization - and the growing sophistication of financial markets - offered the promise of perpetually low inflation, cheap money, and fat returns?
Treasury prices fell Wednesday after another big auction raised concerns that the supply of U.S. debt securities could outweigh demand.
When the Federal Reserve announced last week it was buying $300 billion in long-term Treasury notes, the move was viewed as one of the safer bets the central bank has made recently.
Government bonds fall Monday afternoon after stocks end lower, letting go of early gains and snapping a five-day rally.
Foreign purchases of U.S. debt increased in the first month of 2009, according to a Treasury report released Monday, easing some concerns that overseas investors have lost their appetite for U.S. debt.
The government said Wednesday the federal budget deficit for the first five months of fiscal 2009 surged to $764.5 billion, more than $300 billion above the gap for all of the prior year.
President Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation's $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term.
President Barack Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation's $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term.
The federal budget deficit expanded by $83.6 billion in December, the Treasury Department reported Tuesday, bringing the total deficit for the first three months of the 2009 fiscal year to $485.2 billion.
The Treasury Department on Wednesday reported that $164.4 billion was added to the federal budget deficit in November -- bringing the total deficit for the first two months of the fiscal year to $401.6 billion.
Tax breaks, tax breaks, tax breaks. For months now, Barack Obama and John McCain have promised voters that they will lessen the financial burden on Americans - even as the economic crisis worsens and the country racks up record deficits.
Two weeks ago in midtown Manhattan, time stood still -- literally. After the country's debt surpassed $10 trillion, the marquee-sized debt clock in Times Square, which has kept a running tally of the U.S. national debt for nearly 20 years, ran out of digits. For a nation already struggling with a bleak economic reality, it was a less-than-reassuring display. Several news organizations quipped about such a literal "sign of the times," while the satiricial newspaper The Onion offered its own brand of gallows humor: "If everyone just donated one dollar, we would have enough money to buy a new clock."Luckily, citizens won't have to pitch in. New York real estate firm The Durst Organization, which owns and operates the clock, plans to install an updated model sometime next year that can display a quadrillion dollars. In the meantime, the company has hacked the current display to provide a temporary solution -- replacing the dollar sign at the front of the number number with an extra digit.
The budget deficit will jump by $246 billion to $407 billion this year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates in a report released Tuesday.
Ross Perot is jumping back into the political fray, this time with a stern warning that the country better start paying attention to the national debt.
The federal budget deficit for the first five months of this fiscal year has risen more than 60% from the prior year after ballooning by more than expected in February, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.
Bush administration officials Monday expressed doubt about an economist's column published over the weekend saying the war in Iraq will cost the United States more than $3 trillion.
The Senate voted Thursday to block a looming tax increase averaging $2,000 for millions of taxpayers after Senate Republicans succeeded in thwarting a Democratic plan to also raise taxes on investors.
A Senate panel on Wednesday approved an increase in the limit on the national debt to $9.82 trillion, the fifth increase in the government's borrowing limit since President Bush took office.
He has recently made stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, giving speeches and holding town hall meetings. But he's not seeking the presidency.
The following is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday:
The White House's Roosevelt Room is wired for PowerPoint presentations, and most officials also bring handouts when they brief George W. Bush and his inner circle. But Budget Director Josh Bolten, who has spent months walking the President through a problem that could dramatically affect his legacy, sticks to colorful charts on old-fashioned easels. The lights stay on, so nobody dozes off, and there's no paper to wander through. It's dense material, after all. "I keep everyone's attention focused on what I want them to focus on," Bolten said.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Who's afraid of the big bad federal budget deficit? Not the bond or currency markets.
The budget deficit will be about $331 billion this year, down from March's estimate of $365 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said in a new forecast released Monday morning.
A survey finds affluent Americans growing more concerned about the state of the economy.
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- Forget all the snide knocks at the eccentric Texas billionaire, Ross Perot proved conclusively in his 1992 independent run for the presidency that even a losing candidate, with a strong message, can profoundly change national policy.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned the U.S. must deal with the causes of the weak dollar -- the U.S. trade deficit and the federal budget deficit -- or the country could run into economic problems down the line.
George Bush and John Kerry disagree about lots of things, but when it comes to economics, they have the same message: Vote for me, and you'll be better off. It's a simple, direct appeal to voters' ...
George Bush and John Kerry disagree about lots of things, but when it comes to economics, they have the same message: Vote for me, and you'll be better off.
There is an important question that, if asked of either presidential candidate during the upcoming debates, is guaranteed to elicit an evasive nonanswer. It goes something like this: "All the fisca...
House Democrats missed two important opportunities last week.
Are the budget deficits, the national debt and the financial problems of the Social Security system smoke and mirrors -- that is, something our "all talk and no action" politicians just like to squabble about? Or are they something we really need to worry about?
Who doesn't love low interest rates?
The economy is surging, unemployment is shrinking, and the Dow has reconquered 10,000. So why then is Robert Rubin convinced the sky is falling?
Should America pay off its debt?
One of the notable things about the presidential primaries so far is the largely superficial treatment given to the candidates' economic views. Charges and countercharges about tax reform, tax cuts...
Could the national debt soon be an endangered species? Although $7.5 trillion in outstanding notes and bonds won't fade away quickly, the capital is agog with the notion that both the deficit and t...
WANT TO PIN a face on America's persistent deficit and savings crisis? Forget those hoary cliches -- the welfare queen, lazy bureaucrat, greedy businessman, weapons-crazed general, or rich Third Wo...
CHANCES ARE that the current decade has not been particularly kind to you. Even if you are not among the millions whose jobs vanished, you may be covering for a slew of fallen colleagues and workin...
With this issue, MONEY launches a monthly readers' poll. In these pages, we will ask for your opinions on matters ranging from how to improve the quality of the nation's public schools to the best ...
YOU SAY you've heard enough about the federal budget deficit? You know it will come to roughly $314 billion in fiscal 1992? You know the national debt grew from nearly $1 trillion ten years ago to ...
Dear Mr. Statistics: I am 68 and used to dozing off any time the national debt comes under discussion. But now the fellows at the tavern tell me interest on the debt is rising more rapidly than fed...
Say this for the Administration's budget proposal: As announced at the end of January, it would not do major harm to the economy. Trouble is, there's no telling what Congress will add when it makes...
IS THERE an economic phenomenon more frustrating than the federal budget deficit? For a decade it has mocked us, defying all efforts to eliminate it -- from the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985, w...
Today the U.S. has the world's highest standard of living, but we will not retain that No. 1 position forever if we become complacent. Left unattended, four worrisome domestic problems -- our low s...
TO MERE taxpaying mortals, the dollars committed to Desert Storm look as awesome as the battle itself. Every time a cruise missile goes off, it's more than $1 million. Scud-busting Patriots cost so...
IT IS 1995. The federal budget deficit is gone -- replaced by a budget surplus. The government has just paid off $101 billion of the national debt. Inflation, at 1.5%, is so insignificant that peop...
For too long the federal government has been a chronic borrower, draining the nation's scarce supply of savings, driving up interest rates, raising the cost of capital, damping investment, worsenin...
AMERICA ENTERS the 1990s bristling with opportunity. The spread of pluralistic, democratic capitalism -- a victory for American ideals and policy -- promises a world bound more tightly together, la...
Want to worry less about the federal deficit? Have I got the book for you. Robert Heilbroner and Peter Bernstein have just published a slim and readable tome called The Debt and the Deficit (W.W. N...
The best way for the federal government to get its financial house in order? Increase the gasoline tax, substantially. Most proponents of this idea cite the need for more federal revenue and the vi...
YOU DIDN'T REALLY expect the election to sweep away all economic uncertainty, did you? True, the transition from one Republican in the White House to another who was living nearby should be smoothe...
The subject of On Borrowed Time (ICS Press, $24.95) is of the utmost importance. It is the so-called entitlement programs of the federal government: Social Security, Medicare, and pensions. Are we ...
The Democrats' main economic argument against George Bush is that his boss presided over a doubling of the national debt. The argument has been effective; it taps into the vague fear that terrible ...
ENTER the strange world of Social Security, as exotically inside out as the domain of black holes and anti-matter that physicists describe. Within the borders of this unexpected land the U.S. runs ...
SO YOU THINK a recession is bound to come before the end of next year. The expansion is aging -- it's so ancient it's creaking, you say. Well, think again. We're here to tell you it still has a way...
LAST MONTH'S 100-point drop in the Dow, triggered by disappointing news about the U.S. trade deficit, was a glint on the sword that hangs over the world financial system. In another month or so, Am...
Six weeks after Black Monday, the broadest measures of the stock market slipped to new lows as investors here and abroad lost faith in the politicians' will to reduce the federal deficit and prop u...
SO INTEREST rates are heading down, down, down, you think. How could it be otherwise? No longer in the do-or-die dollar defense mode, the Federal Reserve has been pouring on the money. Avoiding rec...
''Our goal, which is a goal we think we can achieve during fiscal year 1972, is to operate with a balanced budget.'' -- President Richard Nixon, July 1970 1972 federal budget deficit: $23.4 billion...
A stronger U.S. dollar and steady interest rates propelled most of the major indexes to new records. Five times in June the Dow Jones industrial average set new highs -- the last at 2451.05 -- and ...
The stock market clung close to its historic highs last month despite a trio of troubles: rising interest rates, trade worries and the deadly attack on the Stark in oil's troubled waters. Then earl...
Eyeball to eyeball with widespread optimistic forecasts, the investment markets blinked last month. The declining dollar set off a chain reaction of fears about rising interest rates and inflation....
THE DOLLAR'S long flirtation with free fall had never seemed closer to consummation. Ignoring threats of intervention, the markets bashed the buck with renewed vengeance just after the major indust...
The Social Security system is headed for unaccustomed trouble in the coming years -- gigantic surpluses. By the mid-Nineties the old age, survivors, and disability portion of Social Security will b...
DESPITE the seemingly endless dithering and prevarication, Washington has truly begun to attack the federal deficit. Progress will not be as impressive as President Reagan predicts -- his recent bu...
The new year started with a frenzy on Wall Street. During January's 21 trading days, the Dow Jones industrial average had only four sessions when the index ended down; of the up days, seven showed ...
THE JAPANESE are about to descend on Pearl Harbor again, not to bomb but to build. They will festoon this historic terrain with lagoons, golf courses, swimming pools, tennis courts, and luxury hote...
The manner in which the federal government represents its financial condition is woefully misleading. For all the debate about the exact costs of items in the federal budget and the very precise de...
The American economy is shifting from a high-speed hustle to a sedate waltz, and the effects will be felt worldwide. Last year's roaring growth produced something for everyone. The recovery remaine...
DESPITE RECURRING spasms of fear that it will skid into recession, the U.S. economy keeps trudging along. It will climb for the next year and a half, and though the pace will be remarkably languid,...
For ten or 15 years now, the academic world, the publishing world, and the world of economists have all been wondering about the fate of a book. Paul Samuelson's famous Economics, first published i...
AT SOME UNRECORDED moment earlier this year -- perhaps it was in February when the dollar reached a peak against foreign currencies, or maybe it was on April Fools' Day -- the U.S. became a debtor ...
POLITICIANS, pundits, and most economists have come to agree that the federal budget deficit is the paramount problem facing the U.S. By ''the deficit'' they no longer mean the difference between t...
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