America was rocked this week, in rare and frightening ways.

President Barack Obama is sending Congress a $3.8 trillion spending blueprint that seeks to achieve an elusive "grand bargain" to tame runaway deficits by raising taxes further on the wealthy and trimming popular benefit programs such as Social Security.

President Barack Obama's proposed budget will call for reductions in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs while still insisting on more taxes from the wealthy in a renewed attempt to strike a broad deficit-cutting deal with...

Severe spending cuts now the law of the land, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans refused Saturday to concede any culpability for failing to stave off what both parties acknowledged was a foolhardy way to slash federal spending.

It's not the first time that government economic engineering has produced a time bomb with a short fuse.

President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders refused to budge in their budget standoff Friday as $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts bore down on individual Americans and the nation's still-recovering economy.

President Barack Obama set up high-stakes clashes with Republicans over guns, immigration, taxes and climate change in a State of the Union address that showcased his determination to mark his legacy. Republicans urged Obama to get out of campaign...

Republicans say President Barack Obama's second-term agenda will bring more tax increases and increase deficit spending. They're vowing to promote economic growth to help middle-class families find good jobs

Just about everyone in official Washington is in agreement that big across-the-board spending cuts at the Pentagon and throughout domestic federal programs on March 1 are a bad idea. So far, however, the warring tribes in the nation's capital seem...