As the Chicago Teacher's strike appeared over and over on the news, I began to think about what an evaluation of another group of public employees may unearth -- the performance and efficacy of our Congressmen and women.

We face, today, our own hard and inescapable facts that call into question what the most important pursuits of America's responsibility and purpose at home and abroad really are. Guns to kill people in other countries or butter to save people in our own?

Earlier this week, Senate Republicans rolled out their proposal for financing an extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut scheduled to expire at the end of December: cutting federal employees' jobs and wages.

WASHINGTON: President Obama's defense budget for 2013 implements the start of the $500 billion in budget cuts required by the Budget Control Act but d...

Fukuyama is devoted to the Westminister model, which theoretically can produce a coherent plan but which, in the real world, seems to suffer, like any political mechanism, some stubborn problems.

See -- we're not that stupid. Wait. Maybe that should be the new slogan: "Congress -- we're not that stupid."

As the automatic cuts resulting from the failed super committee debacle phase in, Washington should should be ready for a surge of Occupiers as OWS activists march toward Capitol Hill on foot.

The group representing the nation's governors is recalibrating its priorities after the super committee failed to reach a deficit reduction deal. ...

How deeply do you want to plumb the depths of the collapse of the super committee?

WASHINGTON -- The failure of a special deficit-reduction supercommittee sets up a year-end battle between President Barack Obama and a dysfunctional C...

President Obama is set to make a statement from the White House briefing room at 5:45 p.m. on Monday, following news that the congressional super comm...

The Republican candidate zoned in on military defense and foreign policy issues as he addressed employees of the defense and security company. He b...

The Super Committee can still salvage something that, for a Congress whose approval rating is just slightly north of Fidel Castro's, would actually make the American people feel empowered.

As the Congressional super committee moves towards its deadline for developing a deficit reduction plan, we need to make sure that its decisions reflect the national interest, not special interests.

So Mr. President, this is your opportunity -- one that you and the country cannot afford to miss: Lead your party to essentially accept the Republican proposal and lead the final negotiation to reach a bipartisan deal on $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.

Seven days separate the supercommittee from its fate. By Nov. 23, the 12-member panel is tasked with the difficult chore of finding $1.2 trillion to s...

The Super Committee needs to die of its own weight and its perverse policy assumptions. Its collapse will leave the Republicans exposed as a party with no plan for economic recovery other than more tax cuts for the rich and cuts in social insurance that most Americans value -- leaving the whole question of what programs to cut and what taxes to raise as the proper subject of a 2012 election that Democrats could actually win. Here's a better program: raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations; use the proceeds for jobs and public infrastructure investment; get some budget cuts out of military spending by ending two wars.

It's a terrible mistake to ask the Americans who were wounded most by deficit-causing behavior to carry so much of the cost of fixing it. And to propose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid simply to preserve low tax rates for the wealthy is nothing less than a moral obscenity.

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats on the super committee tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction have ruled out supporting a measur...

WASHINGTON — A top Senate Democrat says that a deficit "supercommittee" is unlikely to succeed because of a deadlock over taxes. New York Democ...

Democrats cannot keep putting cuts on the table that will hurt low-income people, only to see their package rejected by the Republicans, who are likely to adopt every spending cut proposal but little or none of the revenues.

WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, the National Governors Association asked the congressional super committee on deficit reduction to keep state finances in mi...

WASHINGTON -- The congressional super committee tasked with finding $1.5 trillion or so in deficit reduction is racing against the clock. Under its ch...