u s house committee on the budget

Over the past quarter-century, veterans appropriations bills have been passed on schedule only three times. For the other 22 years, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has had to wait days, weeks and often months before knowing what its funding would be.

House Republican plan to slash and burn popular domestic programs is likely to hurt the party's chances of winning a Senate majority

President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.9 trillion federal budget on Tuesday that calls for spending billions more on infrastructure, raising taxes on the wealthy and closing an income inequality gap the president has made a top target of his second term.

Proposal to expand Earned Income Tax Credit deserves Republican support (and probably won't get it)

Facing a backlash from veterans, lawmakers in both parties — including several in Maryland — are reconsidering a cut to military retiree pensions that they approved last month as part of a rare bipartisan budget agreement.

A bipartisan budget deal aimed at calming debates over U.S. fiscal policy for the next two years cleared a key vote Tuesday in the Senate, reducing the risks of another government shutdown and spending cuts that would have had an outsized impact in Maryland.

It may have been a long time coming, but President Obama's decision to stand up to the obstructionists in Congress that led to the 16-day government shutdown in October has begun to pay off.

Although modest in scope and punitive to federal workers and the jobless, Congress should approve Murray-Ryan bipartisan budget plan

As the late budget agreement cleared the way for federal workers across Maryland to go back to work and government offices to reopen Thursday, attention in Washington shifted to the next fiscal deadline: Jan. 15, when funding is set to run out again.

WASHINGTON -- A video of Montgomery County Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen battling with House Republicans over legislation to reopen government agencies has gone viral -- picking up 1.7 million views in recent days -- as lawmakers continue to wrestle over a deal to end the weeks long budget impasse.

Lawmakers in Congress were scrambling late Monday to settle on legislation to end the latest budget showdown even as federal agencies prepared to cut services and furlough hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

President Obama's plan for rescuing the economically stagnating middle class is trumped by yet another debt ceiling crisis on the horizon

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican Party's nominee for vice president last year, challenged the Maryland GOP last night to follow the example of the party in his home state of Wisconsin and take back the State House

Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012, is scheduled to speak in Baltimore on Thursday at the Maryland Republican Party's annual Red, White and Blue Dinner.

Labor unions representing federal employees reacted angrily to the $3.8 trillion budget unveiled Wednesday by President Barack Obama, who proposed trimming $20 billion from federal retirement benefits — reopening a debate many Democrats felt had been resolved last year.

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are stepping up their rhetoric on federal employee compensation — positioning the issue as a central bargaining chip in negotiations next month over raising the debt ceiling and paying for government operations.

A bipartisan plan to avoid federal spending reductions and tax increases that would hit Maryland especially hard won final approval Tuesday night in the House of Representatives even as outside groups warned that the bill would simply delay difficult decisions for a few months.

Mary Sanchez says that as long right wing insurgents can attract big bucks, they'll be a force in the GOP

President Barack Obama no longer needs Gov. Martin O'Malley as a top campaign surrogate, and the Democratic Governors Association is set to elect someone else as its chairman. But neither development is likely to push Maryland's governor off the national stage.

WASHINGTON -- Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, locked out of pursuing a higher leadership role in this Congress, formally requested another term as the top-ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee in a letter to colleagues Tuesday.

Montgomery County Rep. Chris Van Hollen is the latest Democrat from Maryland to land a speaking role in Charlotte next week, Democratic National Convention organizers announced Friday.

They are here to support Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but a handful of Marylanders considering a run for higher office are also hoping to benefit politically from his convention.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Departing from an economic message that has so far dominated the Republican National Convention, Maryland Rep. Andy Harris used an address to state party leaders here today to focus instead on how to deal with federal budget deficits and government spending.

Can a 21st century nation survive on the policies of William Howard Taft?

Sarah Palin was all flash and no substance; Paul Ryan is all substance, and given what he believes, that is all the more frightening, Robert Reich writes.

When GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, as his running mate last week, members of both political parties around the country and in Howard County welcomed the news.

The public may be moving toward a new way of thinking that rejects parties, embraces solutions

Republican and Democratic candidates made a final push for support across the state hours before voters were set to head to the polls in Maryland today to chose a GOP presidential candidate and settle a handful of highly competitive congressional contests.

The state Senate voted Thursday to significantly raise taxes on Marylanders earning half a million dollars or more — prompting complaints that liberals were bent on launching class warfare in the state.

Eight of Maryland¿s 10 members of Congress voted against a bi-partisan plan Friday to extend a national payroll tax holiday ¿ including two who were instrumental in crafting the deal ¿ citing concern over how the measure would affect federal employees.

New federal employees would contribute more than triple the amount paid by current government workers for their retirement under an agreement reached in Congress to extend a payroll tax break and unemployment benefits, two Maryland lawmakers who helped craft the deal said Thursday.

Candidates won't talk about their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare because they know the public won't support such action

Federal employee unions and some Democratic lawmakers from Maryland on Monday criticized President Barack Obama's proposed $3.8 trillion budget for 2013 because of cuts to retirement plans.

For Rep. Chris Van Hollen, brokering a bipartisan deal to trim the federal deficit is about more than dodging draconian automatic cuts or boosting the fragile economic recovery. It's also about proving a bitterly divided Congress can still accomplish something.