Seventy-two members of the U.S. Congress have signed a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting updated detailed information about government grants to Planned Parenthood.

Leading the effort to uncover information about government money being funneled to Planned Parenthood are Representative Pete Olson of Texas and Representative Diane Black of Tennessee. The request asks for more information following a GAO report compiled and released in 2010 at the request of 31 members of Congress that raised more questions than it answered.

President Obama and congressional leaders were facing a rapidly shrinking set of options for averting the fiscal crisis as they prepared to meet Friday afternoon, with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warning they are "running out of time."

Just a few weeks ago, lawmakers had high hopes for a "grand bargain" that would narrow the deficit, overhaul the tax code and set the country on a course to curb its entitlement spending -- all while averting massive tax hikes and spending cuts set to hit Jan. 1.

Having squandered that time, lawmakers -- and taxpayers -- will now be lucky if they can just avert the tax hikes.

At the meeting Friday afternoon, Obama was expected to pitch a "Plan C" that's essentially a version of the scaled-back proposal he floated a week ago before leaving for Hawaii.

The White House on Tuesday rejected House Speaker John Boehner's call for a fall-back option to avert the looming fiscal crisis, in a move the speaker's office said "defies common sense."

The feisty exchange came as both sides crept toward a possible middle ground in private talks. But underscoring the differences that remain, the White House resisted Boehner's bid to craft a "Plan B" just in case those talks fail to yield a compromise before a Jan. 1 deadline -- that's when taxes are set to rise on everyone, followed by a wave of spending cuts.

"Every income tax filer in America is going to pay higher rates come Jan. 1 unless Congress acts," Boehner said Tuesday morning, as he introduced his alternative plan.

Boehner called for taxes to rise only on households making more than $1 million. His plan also called for entitlement cuts and a tax reform debate next year...

President Obama, amid charges of class warfare, pushed Monday for a tax hike on families earning more than $250,000 -- and an extension of the Bush-era tax rates for families making less than that.

The president, speaking in the East Room of the White House, said he wants to break through the "stalemate" over taxes in Congress. He argued that sustaining the current tax rates for top earners puts too big a hole in the federal budget, saying "we can't afford to keep that up." Obama called on Congress to extend those rates, for one year, for families earning under $250,000 -- failure to do so, he said, would be a "blow" to families and a "drag" on the economy.

"We don't need more top-down economics," Obama said. "We need policies that grow and strengthen the middle class"...

Finding rare political accommodation on the cusp of a holiday recess, Congress passed legislation Friday designed to salvage 2.8 million jobs and shield students from a sharp increase in loan interest rates.

The legislation, which also revamps highway and transit programs and shores up the federal flood insurance program, now goes to the White House for President Obama's signatures.

Lawmakers trying to leave town for a weeklong Fourth of July recess had been facing twin deadlines: Federal highway and transit aid programs and the government's authority to levy federal fuel taxes were expiring Saturday. And interest rates on new student loans were set to double on Sunday...

Romney Press Secretary Andrea Saul attacked President Barack Obama's decision to invoke executive privilege on documents pertaining to the Fast and Furious scandal requested by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“President Obama’s pledge to run the most open and transparent administration in history has turned out to be just another broken promise,” she said in a statement to BuzzFeed.

The scandal has largely been ignored by the media and the American public, but is entering the mainstream as the committee prepares to vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the documents.

The contempt vote centers around documents contempt from after February 4, 2011 — the fate the Department of Justice first tried to downplay the failed operation — to examine why it took so long to acknowledge the operation's flaws, the management practices at the department, and how it treated whistle-blowers...

President Obama's comment Friday that the private sector is "doing fine" and the GOP Congress is slowing down the economy was immediately pounced on by Mitt Romney and other Republican leaders, resulting in the president backpedaling by the afternoon.

Obama said late Friday it is "absolutely clear" that the U.S. economy is "not doing fine." He also said there has been some "good momentum" in the private sector, but Congress needs to act to help boost jobs in the public sector.

“The private sector is doing fine,” the president said during a morning White House press conference. “Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. … If Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments”...

One day after a new video exposing how Planned Parenthood encourages women to have sex-selection abortions, the House of Representatives will vote on legislation that would ban such abortions in the United States.

The House will consider the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, a bill to ban sex-selection abortions, that was introduced by pro-life Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and was approved by the House Judiciary Committee on February 16. Because H.R. 3541 will be considered on the Suspension Calendar, a two-thirds majority will be necessary for passage.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser condemned Planned Parenthood for its role in encouraging sex-selection abortions and said the new Live Acton video is evidence they need to be banned. The video shows abortion clinic workers employed by Planned Parenthood willing to perform abortions based on gender...

Michael Cannon, director of healthy policy studies at the Cato Institute, says the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a panel of 15 unelected government officials with the power to change Medicare policy, raise taxes, impose conditions on federal funds to states, and even appropriate money without congressional authorization.

"Once this board issues one of its proposals, ObamaCare requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to enact that proposal, unless Congress either strikes it down or offers a substitute," Cannon detailed in a recent podcast.

Striking down a proposal would require a three-fifths vote of the Senate.

"In essence, what ObamaCare gives to this unelected board of government officials is the power to write laws," the expert summarizes...

President Barack Obama today, during a televised press conference, said in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t believe the Supreme Court will overturn Obamacare, the abortion funding and rationing law pro-life groups oppose.

“We are confident that this will be upheld because it should be upheld,” Obama said at a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. He added that the high court would be supposedly guilty of “judicial activism” by striking down the Obamacare law a majority of Americans oppose.

“I’m confident the Supreme Court will uphold the law,” Obama said. “That’s not just my opinion, but also the opinion of legal experts across the entire political spectrum.”

“The reason is because in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional,” Obama said. “That’s not just my opinion, by the way.