WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will lay out his vision on how to reduce the nation's spending deficit and the national debt during a major speech at George Washington University on Wednesday night.

White House officials say the president will announce a balanced approach that addresses the three legs of the stool that cost the U.S. government the most money, including:
* Entitlement programs like Medicare
* The U.S. Defense Department
* Tax breaks on everything from college tuition to real estate.

Obama's plan will likely include recommendations from members of the president's bi-partisan debt commission, led by former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., and Democratic businessman Erskine Bowles...

(CNSNews.com) - The budget deal cut late Friday by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) will allow $3.7555 trillion in federal spending in this fiscal year.

That is $773 billion more than federal spending was in fiscal year 2008--the fiscal year before Congress enacted a bailout for the banking industry requested by President George W. Bush and a $787-billion economic stimulus law request by President Barack Obama.

On Friday night, Boehner and Reid released a joint press statement saying that together with President Obama they had reached an agreement to cut spending in fiscal year 2011 to a level $78.5 billion below the president’s original budget request. “We will cut $78.5 billion below the President’s 2011 budget proposal,” they said...

WASHINGTON -- Higher taxes have been missing from the fierce budget battle that nearly shut down the federal government. But President Obama is about to put them on the table -- at least a modest version that he had pushed before and then rested on the shelf.

Most economists and budget analysts say a comprehensive mix of spending cuts and tax increases is essential to any viable deficit-reduction plan. Yet few players in the negotiations have gone there.

It comes in the scramble to heed what is widely viewed as a loud clamor from voters to slam the brakes on runaway government spending. There has been no corresponding public demand for raising taxes. That's not surprising, but the top-bracket U.S. tax rate now is the lowest it's been in decades, and it's far lower than those in many other industrialized countries, especially in western Europe...

The great American engine of democracy is beginning to build up a head of steam, and it remains the finest device created by man to organize collective human action.

Two months ago, the conventional wisdom held that Washington would do nothing of consequence to start dealing with our fiscal crisis. Certainly that was the political base line for President Obama’s Feb. 14 budget proposal for 2012, which, while roundly condemned as a call to inaction, was seen as politically “shrewd.”

Then, about a month ago, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed $61 billion in budget cuts for the remainder of the 2011 budget - as the Democratic Party-controlled Congress had failed to pass any budget while in the majority last year...

With a government shutdown half a day away, the Senate’s top Democrat said Friday the two sides are still too far apart to strike a deal and said he will try a longshot effort to pass a short-term spending bill later today.

House Republicans have already passed a one-week reprieve but President Obama and Senate Democrats have rejected that. Without a short-term bill, the government will run out of money and many operations will cease at midnight Friday.

“We’re very hopeful we can reach agreement,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said on the Senate floor...

President Obama, saying the government was already "starting to move" on a federal shutdown, came out of another high-stakes evening meeting Thursday with congressional leaders without a budget deal that could keep the government running.

"I'm not prepared yet to express wild optimism, but I think we are further along today than we were yesterday," Obama said in the White House briefing room after the meeting with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Yet with a shutdown possible as early as midnight at the end of Friday, Obama said he is pressing Democrats and Republicans to reach an agreement by Friday morning...

The White House has vowed to veto the short-term spending bill House Republicans voted on this afternoon that would provide a budgetary “safety net” while the parties work on a long-term deal.

Hours later the House passed the safety net bill anyway on a mostly party-line 247-181 vote.

Without a short-term extension, lawmakers face two options: either reach a deal on a broad bill to fund the government for the rest of this year, or else have the government shut down as of midnight Friday...

WASHINGTON- Republicans battling with President Barack Obama over budget cuts plan to hold a House vote Thursday on one-week legislation to avoid a government shutdown, despite opposition from the White House and Senate Democrats pressing for a longer-term solution.

The party leaders debated as the clock ticked toward a midnight Friday deadline. Even a brief shutdown could affect a wide range of Americans, from troops fighting abroad to tourists planning trips to national parks.

The move by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to advance the interim budget measure angered his Democratic negotiating counterparts and came after slower-than-hoped White House talks Wednesday night. The president said Republicans need to display more urgency, while Boehner said honest differences remain...

(CNSNews.com) – House Budget Chairman Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said President Barack Obama’s budget strategy is to “do nothing, punt, duck, kick the can down the road” while the debt remains on track to eventually hit 800 percent of GDP. Ryan added that the CBO is saying it "can't conceive of any way" that the economy can continue past 2037 given its current trajectory.

Ryan also said that the House Republicans’ FY2012 budget, which he unveiled yesterday, would save Medicare and help the United States avoid a debt crisis...

President Obama, after a high-stakes meeting Wednesday night with congressional leaders at the White House, called the discussion "frank" and "constructive" but said no budget deal was reached.

"If we are serious about getting something done we should be able to complete a deal, get it passed and avert a shutdown," Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room, though it remained unclear how the two sides would forge such an agreement.

A few minutes later outside the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner stood side by side to update reporters on the talks...