Throughout the debate about the deficits and debt, you've probably heard a certain metaphor: One that compares the nation to a household. Well, that metaphor bothers one of the nation's leading economists, Robert Shiller of Yale University.

Commentator Robert Reich says lawmakers need to apply the brakes on automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to go into effect at the end of the year or the U.S. may face a new recession.

A new report from the General Services Administration's inspector general says government officials spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a training conference near Las Vegas -- and the money wasn't only going to binders and bag lunches.

Do Americans agree with President Obama's latest budget proposal? Gallup's editor-in-chief Frank Newport explains what Americans want the government to cut and spend more money on.