Members of a special deficit-cutting panel are getting renewed encouragement from their colleagues even as they remain far apart on taxes and cuts to so-called entitlement programs like Medicare.

With a Thanksgiving deadline fast approaching, the GOP members of a deficit-reduction supercommittee are pressing a plan to cut the deficit by about $1.5 trillion over the coming decade, showing flexibility on tax revenue increases for the first time while proposing to gradually raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67...

Capitol Hill Republicans say the GOP members of a deficit "supercommittee" are showing flexibility on revenue hikes as the panel heads closer to its Thanksgiving deadline.

President Barack Obama's campaign-style drive for another batch of economic stimulus spending is facing defeat yet again at the hands of Republicans in the Senate.

The Senate has approved must-do legislation to fund the day-to-day budgets of five Cabinet agencies, kick-starting long overdue work to add the details to budget limits agreed to by President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans this summer.

House Speaker John Boehner says he has high hopes that a congressional "supercommittee" will be able to reach "common ground" on a plan to cut the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over a decade.

Rival deficit-cutting plans advanced by Republicans and Democrats on Congress' secretive supercommittee would both mean smaller-than-expected cost of living benefit increases for veterans and federal retirees as well as Social Security recipients and bump up taxes for some individuals and families, according to officials familiar with the recommendations.

The richest 1 percent of Americans have been getting far richer over the last three decades while the middle class and poor have seen their after-tax household income only crawl up in comparison, according to a government study.