After three weeks of buildup, the stakes for President Barack Obama’s jobs speech Thursday couldn’t be higher — and the expectations couldn’t be lower.

Republicans are so certain he won’t offer anything new that some aren’t even attending. Democrats are questioning why the White House is pouring so much of its capital into another big speech. And both parties are skeptical that any concrete action will come of it in Congress.

But for Obama, the speech is not only likely to be his last, best chance to take a serious stab at jolting the economy; it’s also an opportunity to rebalance the debate in Washington, where Republicans have been steering the agenda since the November midterm elections. His task is nearly impossible: appease liberals, appeal to independents, win over some Republicans and make a compelling case to Washington-weary voters...

The White House projects that the unemployment rate will still be above 9 percent next year as President Obama seeks to win a second term.

The new figures from the White House budget office predict that the economy will grow by just 1.7 percent this year, a full percentage point less than the administration predicted at the beginning of 2011. The economy grew by just 0.7 percent in the first half of the year, the slowest pace since the recession ended two years ago.

But the White House does not forecast the economy sliding back into recession.

The White House report also sees the budget deficit topping $1.3 trillion for the fiscal year that ends at the end of this month.

A second lawsuit has been filed to obtain documents from the Justice Department regarding its decision not to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Judicial Watch has joined with the Family Research Council in filing the lawsuit, based on the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain documents to explain why the decision was made.

"You know, they made this decision, and ... based on the timing of certain court filings [it looks like] it was made in concert with the homosexual activists and those who are seeking to redefine marriage," explains Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. "... We just want to figure out what's going on"...

The only way President Barack Obama can solve the nation’s economic woes is to adopt “common-sense” Reaganomics, the policy’s architect Arthur Laffer claims in an exclusive Newsmax interview.

Laffer said the White House called him in the spring and asked him to speak to Obama’s former Council of Economic Advisors’ chairman Austen Goolsbee – and he had told him exactly the same thing.

“Reaganomics would fix any economy that’s in the doldrums,” Laffer said. “It’s not a magic sauce, it’s common sense...

(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...

Global markets recently fixated on the budget fight in Washington, but have remained mostly calm, in part because many investors think the Treasury Department will be able to avoid default for at least a week or two beyond the Aug. 2 “drop dead” deadline touted by the White House.

The additional elbow room that Treasury has — though the White House insisted again Tuesday that it has no “wiggle room” — comes from a variety of sources, according to Wall Street analysts. For one, federal revenues came in stronger than expected in recent weeks, giving the Treasury an extra $14 billion in cash to spend on Social Security and other payments after Aug.

As Washington continues to grapple for a way out of its debt dilemma, a separate bipartisan budget plan by the Senate's "Gang of Six" appears to be losing momentum.

Critics complained that the proposal contains larger tax increases than advertised.

While the plan would lower the top tax rate from 35 percent to somewhere between 23 and 29 percent, it also targets some cherished tax breaks...

The debate over the debt ceiling moves Monday from the backrooms of the White House to the halls of Congress, as the House and Senate take up dueling measures to grapple with the problem.

Though the White House says the president still wants a "big" deficit-reduction deal linked to a debt-ceiling increase, a solid week of bipartisan talks yielded nothing close to a compromise -- leaving members of Congress instead moving on to a couple of risky proposals.

House Republicans will act first, pushing their "cut, cap and balance" plan at a committee hearing late Monday afternoon. That plan would cut spending immediately and cap future spending as a percentage of GDP, while requiring Congress to pass a balanced-budget amendment as a condition for raising the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion...

President Obama is meeting with congressional lawmakers at the White House again on Monday after negotiations the day before deadlocked over a plan to cut $4 trillion from a 10-year budget blueprint that Democrats insist include $1 trillion in tax hikes.

Obama suggested lawmakers come back to the table every day until a deal is done. But the "grand bargain" is unlikely to pick up any Republican support as long as the administration seeks tax increases to pay for the gap between spending and revenues in Washington.

The president will hold a news conference Monday at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the status of the debt talks, as the Aug. 2 deadline looms. Obama has indicated that any deal must extend the debt limit until at least Jan. 1, 2013...

The high-stakes negotiations over the country’s long-term debt problems kicked into another gear Monday as President Obama met separately with the Senate’s two top leaders in hopes of jump-starting a deal.

As the meetings unfolded, the White House dismissed criticisms that the president has been slow to get personally involved.

Press secretary Jay Carney said it was “nuts” to think that everyday Americans care whether Mr. Obama is deeply involved in each and every meeting with congressional leaders, especially as he was making up his mind about the scope of a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan...