He’s the only member who voted against last week’s debt deal, and also the only one who wrote his own individual budget this year — both of which make Sen. Patrick J. Toomey the wild-card selection to the 12-member deficit supercommittee charged with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts by Thanksgiving.

Mr. Toomey is not a chairman or ranking member of any committee, he is not an elected caucus leader, nor does he bring the experience as a former White House budget director that his fellow freshman Republican committeeman, Sen. Rob Portman, carries.

What the first-term Pennsylvanian does have, though, is a long record of fighting for spending cuts — and even leading the charge against his own party during his six years in the House, from 1999 through 2004, when he stepped down to fulfill a term-limits pledge he made to his district...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says blaming the tea party for America's debt crisis is like blaming the fireman for fires.

"The Tea Party has been fighting for a serious solution that would rescue our finances through immediate spending cuts, spending caps and most importantly, a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution," Paul said in a statement on his Web site. "With the support of the Tea Party, I offered the only solution that could have prevented our downgrade with our Cut, Cap and Balance plan.”

The plan was tabled in the Democrat-controlled Senate...

House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday tapped three top Republicans with spending-cuts credentials to join the 12-member super committee tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit-lowering tax increases or spending cuts.

Mr. Boehner selected Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, who is Congress’s chief tax-writer; Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who is chairman of the House Republican Conference.

Already, Republicans signaled they will focus on cutting spending as they try to bring Washington’s record debt and staggering annual deficits under control...

(CNSNews.com) - The percentage of Americans saying they approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing tied its all-time low of 42 percent in the week of Aug. 1-7, while the percentage of Americans saying they disapprove of the job Obama is doing tied its all-time high of 50 percent, according to the Gallup poll.

The record-high 50-percent level in Obama’s disapproval came in the same week he signed legislation to increase the federal government’s debt limit by $2.4 trillion and Standard & Poor’s downgraded U.S. government debt from AAA to AA+ for the first time ever.

Obama weekly disapproval in the Gallup poll had previously hit its record high of 50 percent in the week of Aug. 16-22, 2010. It has never exceeded that percentage...

While continuing to cast doubt on the credibility of Standard & Poor’s, several Democrats on Sunday said there is an even greater culprit in the downgrade of the nation’s credit rating: the tea party.

“I believe this is, without question, the tea party downgrade,” Sen. John F. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, a day that also saw mounting anxieties in world markets over the downgrade among myriad other economic woes worldwide.

Members haven't been named yet, but appointees to the new congressional "super committee" tasked with achieving at least $1.2 trillion in debt reduction by the end of the year will find their colleagues hopeful but not necessarily optimistic about the outcome.

"I'm not putting all my stock in this committee," Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told "Fox News Sunday," adding that he would be willing to serve on the committee if House Speaker John Boehner named him to it.

"I think people are overemphasizing what this committee is going to achieve," he said...

Besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters, America -- says Texas Governor Rick Perry -- is in the midst of a historic crisis. And for those reasons, he and other Christians will gather in Houston on Saturday for a day of prayer and fasting.

The Texas governor has been under attack from those who think he is merely using the event to bolster his political career. But David Barton, a Christian historian, president of WallBuilders, and of those who will help lead prayer at Saturday's event, insists Governor Perry is not promoting the event to call attention to his presidential prospects.

"He called this event when he was not thinking politics at all," Barton accounts. "When he called this event, he and I had just spoken, and the furthest thing from his mind was anything national. This is just a time to pray"...

(CNSNews.com) - A week that began with President Barack Obama going on national television to pitch his vision for a debt-limit deal in terms that pitted “millionaires and billionaires” against “everyone else,” ended with the president receiving his lowest-ever weekly approval ratings in the Gallup poll from the poorest Americans (those earning less than $2,000 per month) and from one segment of the middle class (those earning between $5,000 and $7,499 per month).

In fact, according to Gallup, Obama enjoys no more approval among the poorest Americans today than he does among the richest—and he enjoys significantly less approval among middle class Americans earning between $5,000 to $7,499 than he does among the richest Americans as measure by the income brackets reported by Gallup (those earning $7,500 per month or more)...

Democrats in Washington have called them terrorists and extortionists, but tea party activists say that is only proof they are finally influencing the debate over government spending.

“Our enrollments go up and people start new chapters,” said Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, of the impact of rhetorical attacks during the recent battle with President Obama and congressional Democrats. “It’s definitely worked to our advantage.”

During the contentious fight over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, Republican lawmakers affiliated with the tea party were targeted for extra scorn as they held out for deeper spending cuts and no tax increases. Rep. Mike Doyle, Pennsylvania Democrat, complained to Vice President Joseph R. Biden in a closed meeting of House Democrats that the tea party lawmakers “have made it impossible to spend any money”...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government will borrow $72 billion in debt auctions next week now that Congress has raised the nation's borrowing limit.

The Treasury Department says it will sell 3-year notes, 10-year notes and 30-year bonds to raise the money. About one-third will go to repay debts that are due on Aug. 15.

President Barack Obama cleared the way for the auction on Tuesday when he signed into a law a bill that raises the debt ceiling and promises more than $2 trillion in cuts to government spending over the next decade...