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New York state on Wednesday asked the U.S. federal government to pay all the costs of cleaning up and repairing damage from massive storm Sandy that tore through the Northeast this week and crippled New York City. Governor Andrew Cuomo said he is asking fellow Democrat, President Barack Obama, to pay 100 percent of the estimated $6 billion bill, at a time that state and local government budgets remain constrained by a weak economic recovery. … New York top finance official, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, said Washington should foot the bill, because of lingering financial pressures on state and local governments...

It’s very fitting that the same day Mitt Romney chose a fiscal and budgetary guru as his VP also marks the 1200th day since Senate Democrats have passed a budget. The debt accumulated during that time? Oh, a mere $5 trillion. On Friday, Senate Budget Committee Republicans released this infographic to make it clear:     The Weekly Standard has the scoop:  In a joint statement, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions and House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan mark the milestone. “Tomorrow marks another disappointing record for the United States Senate: Senate Majority Leader Reid and his Democrat...

The House oversight committee voted Wednesday to demand a broad audit of the Federal Reserve system by congressional investigators - a major move lawmakers said is designed to bring accountability to the murky workings of the independent board. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who turned the push for an audit into a powerful campaign slogan and whose criticism of the Fed’s monetary policy drew hundreds of thousands of voters into the political process.

The stock market has plunged to its lowest point in decades, unemployment is up, and home foreclosures are sweeping the country. Still, Americans think it can get even worse – a lot worse. Fully 61 percent of Americans think it is possible the United States government could literally go bankrupt. That’s according to a new Fox News poll released Thursday. And what about the billions of dollars the government has spent since last fall to get the economy back on track? Many Americans think its simply not working: 44 percent say “things would be the same as they are today...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Some members of the Federal Reserve are worried about the possibility of a "severe and protracted downturn" in the U.S. economy, according to the minutes of the central bank's latest minutes released Tuesday. The minutes show that some Fed policymakers are concerned that the problems in the "housing sector had deepened and that considerable uncertainty surrounded the outlook for housing." The Fed cut its key federal funds rate by three-quarters of a point at the March 18 meeting, its sixth rate cut since September. The Fed has been cutting rates in an effort to keep the...