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...

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said today that the new Republicans elected to the House of Representatives last November came to Congress "to kill women." She also likened Republican efforts to prohibit federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is endangered to actions taken by Nazis.

“This is probably one of the worst times we’ve seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus," Slaughter said. "In ’94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women”...

Senate Democrat on Thursday said they will not pass a bill the House is expected to approve that would keep the federal government funding for another week because it contains a provision banning abortion funding in the nation’s capital.

The bill includes language that would put the ban back in place that prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions in the District of Columbia. This language would restore the Dornan amendment to ensure that no congressionally appropriated funds (whether locally or federally generated) may pay for abortion in the District of Columbia.

House Republicans unveiled a budget proposal Tuesday that they claimed would avert a debt-driven "economic collapse" by cutting more than $6 trillion over the next decade.

The proposal, unveiled by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would overhaul two major entitlement programs and impose caps on government spending, with the goal of stabilizing and eventually paying down the debt. It is literally trillions of dollars apart from the budget President Obama released earlier in the year, and its release marks the start of what is expected to be a drag-out budget fight in Congress.

"Our goal here is to leave our children and our grandchildren with a debt-free nation," Ryan said Tuesday. The congressman had tough words for Obama's 10-year budget plan, accusing the White House of speeding up the country's "descent into a debt crisis" by growing government...

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday he believes that Democrats are hoping for a government shutdown to score political points. With the fiscal year already half over, the two parties have been unable to agree on a budget, instead funding government operations with stopgap bills called continuing resolutions.

“Here’s the bottom line. Democrats are rooting for a government shutdown,” Bohner said at a Capitol Hill Press conference. "We’re listening to the people who sent us here to cut spending so we can grow our economy. As I’ve said from the beginning, our goal is to cut spending, not shut down the government.”

Boehner’s comments came only days after former DNC Chairman Howard Dean said that he thought that a government shutdown would be politically beneficial to the Democratic Party...

House Speaker John Boehner dashed cold water Thursday on claims that the two parties had agreed on how much to cut from the rest of this year's budget, saying Republicans would "continue to fight" for an earlier budget proposal Democrats adamantly oppose.

Democrats had earlier claimed negotiators were working on a proposal for around $33 billion in spending cuts. Vice President Biden reported "good progress" on budget talks, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., went so far as to claim the parties had "agreed upon a number."

But while that target is indeed on the table, Boehner said Republicans have not agreed to it...

While the U.S. House of Representatives may have voted recently to defund NPR, the Obama administration is apparently giving money to the BBC.

The United States is currently giving a grant of $4.5 million to the BBC World Service Trust, a division of the British government doing development work around the globe.

Helle Dale of The Heritage Foundation wrote an article on the funding. She tells OneNewsNow: "The money we're giving it for is [for] media development, democracy promotion, and civil society programs in places like Nigeria, where there is a large journalism program that the BBC is running"...

As the Senate works to pass a House-approved short-term bill funding the federal government and debate begins on a long-term measure, a group of Senate Democrats have promised to not support anything de-funding Planned Parenthood.

Yesterday, the House approved the latest short-term continuing resolution on a 271-158 vote margin that does not de-fund Planned Parenthood. The Senate is expected to approve the bill and the battle over Planned Parenthood funding remains.

Some 54 Republicans voted against the measure because they wanted to see the Pence Amendment de-funding Planned Parenthood and the pro-life riders that stop abortion funding in various instances included in the measure. However, Senate Democrats have balked at those pro-life provisions and Republicans hoped to avoid being blamed for a government shutdown by insisting they be included in the short-term bill...

With the Senate having defeated both a pro-life budget bill the House passed and a Senate version not containing provisions to de-fund Planned Parenthood and stop some taxpayer funding of abortions, lawmakers move to the next step.

That step will likely come in the form of a temporary Continuing Resolution that would fund the federal government at current levels rather than make more demonstrative changes like the long-term CR that would have funded the federal government through September.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee defended his decision Thursday to hold a hearing on the radicalization of Muslim Americans, saying there is nothing “un-American” or “radical” about Congress examining whether there are more ways to protect the country from the risk of home-grown terrorism.

“To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee — to protect America from a terrorist attack,” said Rep. Peter T. King, the New York Republican whose district was heavily affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Today, we must be fully aware that home-grown radicalization is part of al Qaeda’s strategy to continue attacking the United States,” Mr. King said, noting the foiled plot to bomb Times Square and the shootings in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas. “Al Qaeda is actively targeting the American Muslim community for recruitment.