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As Republican leaders in the House and Senate unveil their proposed budgets this week, here is the most important thing to remember about the federal budget: It isn't really a budget.

Your school board passes a real budget, and your town passes an actual budget, and so does your ...

Update 11:10 p.m. ET:

Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator himself, condemned the GOP senators' letter in a strongly worded press release late Monday, calling it "beneath the dignity of an institution I revere."

"This letter, in the guise of a constitutional lesson, ignores two centuries of precedent ...

Jeb Bush walked into the lion's den of the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, and walked out smiling — thanks to a few busloads of his supporters who proved louder and more persistent than his hecklers.

Bush, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, started out unevenly in his interview-style appearance, rushing ...

For close to a decade, Jeb Bush's audiences have almost exclusively been people who have paid good money to hear him speak.

That changes today, when he appears at the Conservative Political Action Conference — where potential 2016 presidential rivals are already taking shots at him and some ...

The son and brother of the last two Republican presidents vowed to be his "own man" in a foreign policy speech Wednesday. But he failed to outline a plan to deal with a major focus of those previous two Bush foreign policies: Iraq.

Likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush spoke and ...

Not-quite-yet presidential candidate Jeb Bush posted the first chapter of an e-book about his two terms as Florida governor online Monday, along with six massive files containing a quarter-million of his emails.

This was something Bush said he would do back when he announced he was "actively exploring ...

After dozens of votes attacking Obamacare in recent years, House Republicans' latest attempt Tuesday finally gets real.

Not in the sense that the full repeal bill will become law — it's not likely to pass the Senate and, in any event, faces a certain presidential veto even if it somehow ...

The federal deficit is on track to its lowest level as a percentage of the economy since 2007, and the economy is stronger than expected.

That's the good news from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's new economic outlook released Monday. "Economic activity will expand at a solid pace in 2015 ...

Republican heavyweights Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are already out shaking the money trees for possible 2016 presidential runs, and now Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is putting out the word that he is, too.

His Reclaim America PAC has hired prominent fundraiser Anna Rogers. His major donors are gathering in ...

What do you have when the State of the Union response is assigned to an English-only advocate — but then is reprised in Spanish by someone who supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here unlawfully?

You have some explaining to do, that's what.

Congressional Republicans found themselves in that ...

After months of hints and Hamlet-esque worries about the woes of a modern presidential campaign, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced on a Facebook post that he is "actively" exploring a presidential run.

Bush wrote that the decision came after spending time with his wife, Columba, and their children ...

House and Senate negotiators who thought they were close to a deal renewing expired tax breaks have a new factor to worry about: a veto threat from a White House unhappy about helping businesses but not the working poor.

The veto threat comes with Congress on Thanksgiving recess and planning ...

Former Florida GOP Gov. Jeb Bush defended the Common Core education standards Thursday, but offered an olive branch to Republican activists who oppose them and are making them a litmus test for potential 2016 presidential candidates.

Bush's longtime support has put him crosswise with part of the Republican base. He ...

With the Louisiana Senate runoff driving votes in both chambers of Congress on the Keystone XL pipeline, here's a question: How many of those jobs will actually be in Louisiana?

The answer: zero.

"I don't think it goes through that state," laughed Sean Sweeney, a Cornell University researcher who ...

Everyone knows Sen. Mitch McConnell had a great election night in Kentucky last week. As for the state's other Republican senator, Rand Paul, that's a different matter.

That's because while McConnell was cruising to a big re-election win on his way to becoming Senate majority leader, things did not go ...

If you've enjoyed the battle for control of the Senate over the past many months, here's some good news: The drama could well spill over into next month — or even next year.

While Republicans are increasingly optimistic — and Democrats, pessimistic — about their prospects Tuesday, there are plausible ...

Election Day isn't until next week, but Senate Majority Leader-in-Waiting Mitch McConnell is already warning Republicans who would like to repeal Obamacare and roll back environmental regulations about two key numbers: 60 and 2.

Sixty is how many senators are required to bring all but the most noncontroversial bills to ...

Political scientists looking to test their hypotheses about voting behavior found a ready pool of test subjects this election: Montanans.

A hundred-thousand registered voters received a "voter guide" rating four nonpartisan state Supreme Court candidates by their liberal or conservative ideology. Voters were urged: "Take this to the polls."

"More weed, less war."

That's the latest campaign slogan in the North Carolina Senate race advertising wars. And no, neither Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan nor Republican challenger Thom Tillis is jumping on the state's marijuana legalization effort.

A quarter million dollars in online ads is now supporting a third-party ...

If there's one thing Charlie Crist is afraid of, it's sweating in public.

Understand that, and what happened on a Fort Lauderdale governor's debate stage this week before a live television audience might make a bit more sense.

Viewers who tuned in Wednesday night to watch Florida Republican Gov. Rick ...