House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday launched political grenades at Mitt Romney, arguing that Republicans haven’t coalesced behind the GOP frontrunner because they don’t believe he can beat President Barack Obama in November. The House’s top Democrat repeatedly jabbed at the former Massachusetts governor during an hour-long interview hosted by POLITICO and taunted the [...]
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Mitt Romney’s rivals put his corporate record under the microscope in a Republican presidential debate Monday, with most of his GOP opponents looking to dislodge the party’s frontrunner from his perch ahead of South Carolina’s primary on Saturday. The issue of poverty also factored prominently into the Martin Luther King Jr. Day match-up where a [...]
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Hammered by bipartisan discontent with its partisan rancor, the U.S. Congress reconvenes Tuesday with its lowest approval rating on record in polls dating back nearly 40 years – ideal fodder not just for late-night comedians, but also for President Obama in the election year ahead. Just 13 percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington [...]
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The euro is losing the relationship with riskier assets that underpinned the currency in 2011 as the deepening sovereign debt crisis reduces the creditworthiness of even the biggest economies in the region. The 17-nation currency has fallen 8.6 percent against the dollar since October, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has gained 2.4 percent, [...]
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday in a rare television interview that his Republican counterparts in the Senate are guilty of “obstructionism on steroids” and that the tea party is slowly “dying out.” “First of all, I understand the frustration of the American people,” the Nevada senator said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I [...]
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A Malaysian company’s plan to build a $4 billion convention center and big-time casino on the outskirts of New York City could be the biggest shot fired yet in a tourism arms race that has seen a growing number of Eastern states embrace gambling as a way to lure visitors and drum up revenue. New [...]
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President Barack Obama’s request for authority to streamline U.S. executive agencies was greeted with skepticism from congressional Republicans while Democrats questioned elements of his reorganization plan. The president said yesterday he wants to be able to undertake any consolidation that would save money and shrink government, subject to a “fast-track” vote of approval or disapproval [...]
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Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday 13th for the troubled single currency area. “Today’s rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by [...]
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While President Barack Obama has been touting the importance of “insourcing” jobs into the United States (as opposed to outsourcing jobs overseas), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reminded America on Thursday that Obama recently rejected one of the most prominent and beneficial insourced opportunities: the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sand oil through [...]
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Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, who has cast the 2012 presidential campaign as “free enterprise on trial,” finds himself in a struggle over the role of capitalism in an unlikely place: within his own party. As Romney attempts to frame a general election contest with President Barack Obama on the economy, some of his rivals for [...]
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There was growth across the US at the end of 2011, according to one of the most positive sets of reports in months from Federal Reserve business contacts. Seven of the 12 Fed districts reported “modest” growth, four others reported moderate or accelerating growth, and only the Richmond district was downbeat saying that “activity flattened [...]
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Just like many Americans, the maker of Twinkies, Sno Balls and Wonder Bread is trying to lose the fat. Hostess Brands is hoping to take a bite out of its high costs as it heads back into bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than a decade. Hostess has enough cash to keep stores [...]
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The struggling US city of Detroit is on track to run out of money in May instead of April after spending changes made by city officials, Michigan Treasurer Andy Dillon said on Tuesday. Dillon addressed media following a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with a team that is looking at Detroit’s financial picture and trying to assess whether [...]
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U.S. taxpayers are in line for a big payday, but it is not quite what it seems. The Federal Reserve is out with its year-end tally of net income Tuesday, and the central bank says it expects to return $76.9 billion to the U.S. Treasury. While that may seem like a windfall for Uncle Sam, [...]
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The soaring national debt has reached a symbolic tipping point: It’s now as big as the entire U.S. economy. The amount of money the federal government owes to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other programs, now tops $15.23 trillion. That’s roughly equal to the value of all goods and services the [...]
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