The influence of the Tea Party is about to endure a critical test, as lawmakers enter the second chapter of their deficit-reduction plan after approving a record increase in the debt ceiling.

Conservative Republicans have been conflicted over the 11th-hour compromise and the course of the debate as a whole. While they claim credit for shifting the conversation in Washington from stimulus to deficit reduction, Tea Party lawmakers and activists were disappointed with the result of the debt-cap talks.

In the end, 66 House Republicans and 19 Senate Republicans, many of them Tea Party aligned, opposed the package out of concern that it didn't go far enough...

The Senate voted Tuesday to approve a bipartisan deal raising the debt ceiling, effectively putting an end for now to the partisan crisis that risked the first-ever national default.

The package passed on a 74-26 vote. President Obama vowed to swiftly sign it, just hours before the Treasury is otherwise expected to exhaust ways to pay all the nation's bills.

The president, who spoke in the Rose Garden after the vote, urged Washington return its focus to the economy, saying the debate over the debt ceiling has proved "unsettling" for businesses and suggesting it has overshadowed the "quiet crisis" over jobs...

Punctuated by the surprise return of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, House Republicans and Democrats united Monday to avert a debt crisis, pushing through an increase of up to $2.4 trillion in new borrowing authority, imposing instant spending limits and setting up another five months of debate over making even deeper cuts or raising taxes.

The 269-161 vote was more comfortable than many observers had predicted, and sends the bill to the Senate, where lawmakers were rallying behind the proposal and planning to vote Tuesday, just ahead of the deadline when the Treasury Department will no longer be able to prevent bumping up against the government’s $14.29 trillion borrowing limit.

Republicans said the vote ensures the national conversation remains focused on spending cuts, and said they didn’t violate any of the principles they laid out. Democrats, meanwhile, said they managed to fight off the push for cuts to Social Security and Medicare — at least for now...

Vice President Biden was criticized Monday over reports of a private meeting he had with House Democrats in which Tea Party Republicans were compared to “terrorists," though Biden denies he described Republicans that way.

A senior Democratic official told Fox News that Biden made such comments in reaction to a heated conversation with liberal House members like Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., who were venting that Republicans got too much out of the debt ceiling deal unveiled the night before and "acted like terrorists."

The comment drew an immediate rebuke from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., one of the most outspoken Tea Party-aligned lawmakers in Congress...

(CNSNews.com) - The bill to increase the federal debt limit that has been put before Congress today would increase that limit by up to $2.4 trillion, which would be the largest increase in the debt limit in U.S. history by a margin of half a trillion dollars, according to records published by the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service.

In fact, according to records published by the Congressional Research Service, if the current bill is passed and the debt limit is increased by $2.4 trillion, the two largest debt-limit increases in U.S. history would come in back-to-back years, both during the presidency of Barack Obama.

Up until now, the largest increase in the debt limit was the $1.9 trillion increase passed by Congress and signed by President Obama on Feb. 12, 2010. That law increased the debt limit from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion...

Democratic and Republican leaders in both chambers of Congress will meet with their caucuses Monday for a hard sell of a compromise debt-reduction package that gives President Obama up to a $2.4 trillion hike in the debt limit as long as lawmakers can find an equal or greater amount in spending cuts.

But even if they can’t come up with solutions, the cuts will be found for them. If a committee set up by the proposal fails to have their recommendations for additional cuts approved by the end of this year, a “trigger” in the plan will automatically enact across-the-board cuts.

Party leaders are corralling their troops to take a head count of the votes needed to pass the legislation that President Obama said Sunday night will “life the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over our economy” and prevent the nation from potentially defaulting on its financial obligations...

Washington – Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has signed off on a tentative debt-ceiling compromise, saying he hopes lawmakers can finalize a deal and move to a vote as early as Sunday.

At the same time, concerns were spreading on the conservative side that the emerging plan could cut too deeply into defense spending, raising questions about whether the framework can attract enough bipartisan support.

One congressional source said the deal is not yet sealed. But Reid, becoming the first congressional leader to publicly endorse the plan, said late Sunday afternoon through a spokesman that he had signed off on it "pending caucus approval"....

With the U.S. moving perilously closer to defaulting on its loans, the House on Tuesday evening passed an increase in the federal debt limit tied to progress on a balanced budget, but the Senate responded less than two hours later by putting the House bill on ice.

The House bill was Speaker John Boehner's third version of a deficit-reduction plan, and it passed in a 218-210 vote, with all House Democrats opposed, as well as 22 Republicans.

(CNSNews.com) – A Republican bill that would raise the nation’s debt limit in two stages “has no chance of becoming law,” President Obama said Friday, as he stepped up to the White House podium to urge a “bipartisan” solution.

Obama said there are “multiple ways” to resolve the debt limit problem.

He singled out the Reid plan and the McConnell plan, neither of which were set down in ink as of Friday morning...

(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that House Republicans should not be connecting an increase to the debt limit to reducing the nation’s current $1.5 trillion deficit.

“Over 30 times we have lifted the debt ceiling since President Reagan was president. Over 30 times, not one time did we subject a president to this burden of saying you can’t – we won’t lift it unless we reduce the deficit,” said Pelosi on Wednesday at a Capitol Hill press conference celebrating the 46th anniversary of Medicare being signed into law...