President Obama is meeting with congressional lawmakers at the White House again on Monday after negotiations the day before deadlocked over a plan to cut $4 trillion from a 10-year budget blueprint that Democrats insist include $1 trillion in tax hikes.

Obama suggested lawmakers come back to the table every day until a deal is done. But the "grand bargain" is unlikely to pick up any Republican support as long as the administration seeks tax increases to pay for the gap between spending and revenues in Washington.

The president will hold a news conference Monday at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the status of the debt talks, as the Aug. 2 deadline looms. Obama has indicated that any deal must extend the debt limit until at least Jan. 1, 2013...

President Obama and top congressional Republicans said significant differences remain after high-stakes talks Thursday at the White House on the government’s budget and debt woes, although both sides called the talks constructive and agreed to work through the weekend on a renewed push for a deal.

Mr. Obama said after the meeting that the two sides are still “far apart” on an agreement, while his own path grew more difficult as he faced a potential rebellion in his own ranks. Congressional Democrats and liberal groups expressed unhappiness over reports that trims to Social Security could be part of the final package that could bring up to $4 trillion in cuts and budget savings over the next decade.

Mr. Obama had summoned the leaders of the House and Senate in both parties to the White House as the deadline approaches for Congress to raise the nation’s borrowing limit of $14.29 trillion. The president has said a deal must be reached within the next two weeks, or the U.S.

Democrats and Republicans are clashing in state capitals across the country as GOP-controlled legislatures push proposals to tighten voting requirements -- a move prominent critics have decried as a throwback to Jim Crow laws.

The proposals include measures in nearly three-dozen states to either require voters to show ID before casting their ballots or strengthen existing voter ID laws. Other states have moved to tighten the window for early voting and put new restrictions on whether and when convicted felons can vote.

The proposals are not attracting anywhere near as much attention as state efforts to strengthen immigration laws, cut back on union benefits and balance budgets, but Democrats in recent weeks have launched somewhat of a campaign against them at the national level. They claim Republicans are trying to skew the next election, while limiting the right to vote in the process...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama scheduled a news conference for late Wednesday morning, his first formal question-and-answer session since high-stakes debt and budget negotiations began.

Obama was expected to open with comments about spurring the economy and job growth, and touch on the deficit talks that have occupied Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders over the past several weeks.

Obama's last full-blown news conference was in March, when turmoil in Libya and the threatened shutdown of the government were making headlines. He has since answered questions in brief sessions with reporters during a European trip and during a joint White House appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel...

(CNSNews.com) – ForAmerica, a conservative activist group, has produced a video challenging House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) not to be “chicken,” and to support the group’s “Cut, Cap, and Balance” pledge – cut the deficit, cap spending, and balance the budget.

The pledge would commit signatories to oppose any increase in the congressional debt limit (currently $14.29 trillion) unless substantial cuts in spending are made to reduce the deficit next year. Also, enforceable spending caps must be enacted to put the federal government on a path to a balanced budget, and Congress must pass a constitutional balanced budget amendment that permanently limits federal spending and requires a supermajority to enact tax increases...

Bipartisan budget talks led by Vice President Biden collapsed Thursday after the top two Republican negotiators pulled out, complaining Democrats won't drop their push for tax increases and calling on the president to get involved.

The decision by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., effectively sidelines the talks, which had accelerated in recent weeks as lawmakers tried to strike a budget deal that would pave the way for Congress to approve an increase in the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. The clock is ticking, with the Treasury Department having set Aug. 2 as the deadline to lift the debt cap.

Republicans want to extract major budget cuts before accepting a debt ceiling increase, but do not want tax hikes included as part of the equation.

House Republicans will meet with President Obama Wednesday morning as budget negotiations plod ahead in the wake of a decisive vote against raising the debt ceiling.

The proposal to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion ceiling by another $2.4 trillion failed by a wide margin Tuesday evening, as expected. The vote was lopsided, with just 97 in favor of the measure and 318 against. Eighty-two Democrats joined Republicans in opposing the increase.

House Republican leaders claimed the vote was an explicit endorsement of their call to extract significant spending cuts before increasing the government's borrowing limit...

Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who cut major weapons programs during 4½ years at the Pentagon, is warning against “hollowing out” the U.S. military through unwise spending cuts planned by the Obama administration.

“I am determined that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, where budget targets were met mostly by taking a percentage off the top,” Mr. Gates said in a speech to a conservative think tank Tuesday.

“That kind of salami-slicing approach preserves overhead and maintains force structure on paper, but results in a hollowing out of the force from a lack of proper training, maintenance and equipment - and manpower”...

In an attempt to find common ground on a plan to raise the nation's debt ceiling, a bipartisan, bicameral delegation of lawmakers meets with Vice President Biden across the street from 1600 Pennsylvania avenue at Blair House Tuesday afternoon.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, spelled out his chamber's conditions for any increase to the nation's borrowing authority Monday. At a speech before the Economic Club of New York, Boehner stressed that any deal to increase the limit on the nation's credit card would have to cut more from the budget than the amount by which the limit would be increased. "We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions," he said. Democrats in the Senate do not necessarily share that view.

Through various financial machinations, the Treasury Department should be able to stave off a default on the nation's debt until early August...

A leading panel of budget experts estimated Thursday that President Obama's latest spending plan does not save as much money as the White House initially claimed and is about $1.5 trillion more expensive than the Republican plan.

Since he delivered a major fiscal policy address last week, Obama and other officials have touted that the White House plan would cut $4 trillion over 12 years. Using that figure, they've claimed it's very similar to a House Republican plan which supposedly would cut $4.4 trillion over 10 years.

But given that most budget outlines use a 10-year window, as required by law, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget tried to offer an apples-to-apples comparison -- and determined Obama's proposal would actually cut deficits by $2.5 trillion over the next decade. It credited the president for "moving the ball forward," but said that based on Congressional Budget Office assumptions, the plan doesn't do enough to tackle the debt crisis...