Budget Battles
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What’s Next in the Shutdown Showdown
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Right-Wing Rebels Hand McCarthy a Stunning Defeat
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McCarthy Pitches a Compromise Spending Plan
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McCarthy Suffers a Pair of Stinging Defeats
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McCarthy Faces Grim Math on New Plan to Avert Shutdown
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Stumbling Into a Shutdown
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Frustrated McCarthy Drops F-Bombs — and a Dare
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McCarthy’s Mess: What’s Next in the Shutdown Showdown
What a waste. With a looming September 30 deadline to prevent a government shutdown, the House has now squandered two weeks because of Republican infighting. Since House lawmakers returned last week...
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Lawmakers Eye Plan to End Shutdowns Permanently
By Michael RaineyThe looming threat of yet another government shutdown — which would be the 21st since 1977 — has sparked renewed interest in proposed legislation that would bring such disruptions to an end. On...
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Right-Wing Rebels Hand McCarthy Another Stunning Defeat
The House Republican chaos caucus dealt another stunning blow to Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday, defeating their own party’s Pentagon funding bill for the second time in a week. The failed vote,...
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White House Authorizes $600 Million for More Covid Tests
By Michael RaineyAmid a surge of new Covid-19 cases around the U.S. in recent weeks, the Biden administration is spending $600 million to produce another round of at-home tests, which will be available for free...
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Republicans Scramble to Find a Path Forward
With intraparty tensions running high, House Republican lawmakers are searching for a path forward on a federal funding plan that would avoid a government shutdown in just 10 days’ time. After House...
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GOP Hardliners Hand McCarthy a Pair of Stinging Defeats
House Republican dysfunction was on full display Tuesday as conservatives forced leaders to pull a key vote on the party’s own proposed stopgap spending bill and then torpedoed another vote to...
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Republicans Release 2024 Budget Blueprint
By Michael RaineyHouse Republicans on Tuesday released a long-delayed budget resolution for fiscal year 2024, which the Budget Committee will start marking up this week. The plan has virtually no chance of becoming...
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McCarthy Faces Grim Math on New GOP Plan to Avert Shutdown
With less than two weeks to go until the September 30 deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, two key House Republican groups have put forth a proposal to temporarily keep federal agencies...
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Is Congress Stumbling Into a Shutdown?
By Michael RaineyLawmakers left town late Thursday for an extended weekend, following a brief but chaotic workweek during which the odds of a government shutdown seemed to increase by the hour. Riven by factional...
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A Frustrated McCarthy Dares His Own Members to Oust Him
The growing frustrations of Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans have reached the point where the f-bombs start flying. With intraparty tensions escalating ahead of a September 30 deadline to...
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IRS Freezes Pandemic-Era Tax Credit
By Michael RaineyAmid growing concerns about fraud, the Internal Revenue Service announced on Thursday a moratorium on new claims for the Employee Retention Credit, a refundable tax credit created by Congress in 2020...
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An Unusual Budget Surplus in August
By Michael RaineyThe cancelation of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan produced a rare budget surplus in August, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday. According to the Monthly Treasury...
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McCarthy Faces Conservative Mutiny Over Spending, Shutdown
With a looming September 30 deadline to avert a government shutdown, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is boxed in by his own conference, and Republican hardliners are making it clear that the newly...
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McCarthy Orders Biden Impeachment Inquiry as Shutdown Looms
Under pressure from hard-right members of his caucus, Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday directed House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The inquiry will focus on...
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Poverty Rate Soared in 2022 as Pandemic Programs Came to an End
By Michael RaineyA key measure of poverty in the U.S. jumped by 4.6 percentage points in 2022, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The big jump in poverty, which translates to an...