President Barack Obama will lay out his plan for reducing the nation's deficit Wednesday, belatedly entering a fight over the nation's long-term financial future. But in addition to suggesting cuts—the current focus of debate—the White House looks set to aim its firepower on a more divisive topic: taxes.

In a speech Wednesday, Mr. Obama will propose cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and changes to Social Security, a discussion he has largely left to Democrats and Republicans in Congress. He also will call for tax increases for people making over $250,000 a year, a proposal contained in his 2012 budget, and changing parts of the tax code he thinks benefit the wealthy.

"Every corner of the federal government has to be looked at here," David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said Sunday in one of multiple television appearances. "Revenues are going to have to be part of this," he said, referring to tax increases...

Mark it on the calendar. The next big deadline in Washington is May 16, if not earlier.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner now estimates that the nation's debt ceiling will be reached no later than that date. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Geithner wrote that Congress must act in a matter of weeks to raise the limit or face a fiscal calamity potentially worse than the one from which the nation is recovering.

Geithner noted that the Treasury Department can take "extraordinary measures" to buy time -- about eight extra weeks, maximum -- after the May deadline. But he said once those measures are exhausted the U.S. government would not have enough money to pay its bills. Military salaries, Social Security payments and jobless benefits would cease, he warned, adding that a default on the debt would drive up interest rates, erode home values and cause a new financial crisis...

A year ago, President Obama left a gaping hole in his budget, but promised that his deficit commission would fix it. On Monday, he released his new budget and the hole remains, though this time he dropped the semblance of a fix and instead accepted that his budget shows deficits for the foreseeable future.

While he does call for some tax increases and spending cuts, Mr. Obama‘s 2012 spending plan doesn’t deal with the rising costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, failing to take advantage of several of the commission’s recommendations aimed at curbing the costs of the fastest-growing parts of the federal budget.

As a result, several budget analysts said, Mr. Obama missed a golden opportunity to prove he’s serious about reducing the nation’s annual trillion-dollar deficits and overall $14.1 trillion federal debt...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama gets to play Santa Claus on Friday when he signs into law a massive bipartisan tax package preventing a big New Year's Day tax hike for millions of Americans.

Obama is scheduled to sign the bill at 3:50 p.m. from the White House, sealing a deal with congressional Republicans that was nearly derailed by liberal Democrats who risked being seen as the Grinch.

The measure would extend existing tax cuts for families at every income level, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and enact a new one-year cut in Social Security taxes that would benefit nearly every worker who earns a wage...

WASHINGTON -- Acting with uncommon speed, Congress sent President Barack Obama sweeping, bipartisan legislation late Thursday night to avoid a Jan. 1 spike in income taxes for millions and renew jobless benefits for victims of the worst recession in 80 years.

The measure also will cut Social Security taxes for nearly every wage-earner and pump billions of dollars into the still-sluggish economy.

The 277-148 vote came the day after the Senate cleared the bill, 81-19...

WASHINGTON -- The tax deal struck by President Obama and congressional Republicans essentially gives Americans a pay raise -- pumping money into the economy almost immediately and probably creating hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next two years, economists say.

The compromise already has economists raising their forecasts for growth next year, mainly because it includes a surprising one-year cut in Social Security taxes. The amount of that cut -- 2 percent of pay for most American workers -- instantly becomes more take-home money
. Critics complain that the deal would further swell the $1.3 trillion federal budget deficit.

Two central parts of the agreement extend income-tax cuts that would have expired Dec. 31 and renew benefits for the long-term unemployed. Those were both expected. But they still give a psychological boost to shoppers in the midst of the holiday shopping season...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An austere deficit-cutting plan by President Barack Obama's budget commission has failed to win the supermajority required to force a quick vote in Congress.

The plan won support from 11 of 18 commission members. Fourteen were needed for official approval.

The plan would have cut $4 trillion from the budget over the coming decade through a combination of curbs to Social Security, tax increases and a slew of other spending cuts...

WASHINGTON – Divisions remain within President Barack Obama's deficit commission on politically explosive budget cuts and slashes in Social Security benefits, even as the panel's co-chairmen go public with a revised plan to tame the runaway national debt.

The new plan by co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, to be unveiled Wednesday, faces an uphill slog. Resistance is certain, not only because of the idea of raising the Social Security retirement age, but also because of proposed cuts to Medicare, curtailment of tax breaks and a doubling of the federal tax on a gallon of gasoline.

Though the plan appears unlikely to win enough bipartisan support from the panel to be approved for a vote in Congress this year or next, Bowles has already declared victory, saying he and Simpson have at least succeeded in initiating an "adult conversation" in the country about the pain it will take to cut the deficit...

Lawmakers returning Monday for the start of the lame-duck session on Capitol Hill face an age-old political conundrum: How to respond to voter anger over federal spending without cutting into the entitlement programs and tax breaks that so many of their constituents enjoy.

It's a thorny political issue that promises to haunt lawmakers, who face renewed electoral pressure to speak out against government spending and the soaring national debt, but who also spent the campaign season avoiding detailed discussions about the nation's fiscal health beyond vague generalities and fuzzy math about their plans to cut waste and reduce spending.

"You get a very different reaction when you tell people, 'I'm going to cut spending,' versus telling people, 'I'm going to cut Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and veterans' benefits,'" said Donald Marron, director of the nonpartisan Urban Institute and Tax Policy Center. "Those sound really different"...

The chairmen of President Obama's bipartisan deficit commission tipped their hand Wednesday, releasing a stark, sweeping proposal to rein in federal debts and deficits with cuts to spending programs, Social Security and Medicaid benefits and an increase in the retirement age over the next four decades from 65 to 68.

Among the budgetary sacred cows gored in the plan — at least in one of the options offered by the chairmen — would be elimination of the popular mortgage-interest deduction for homeowners, the child tax credit, deductions for state and local taxes and charitable giving.