Politicians Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan recently introduced a plan to fight poverty by transferring more responsibility to the states. While the federal government offers various assistance programs to U.S. residents in need — anything from unemployment benefits to food stamps — the states provide additional services and benefits.

It's roughly 164 miles from Lubbock, Texas to Abilene; not the furthest drive you can do in the Lone Star State but still a bit of a haul. On a good day, you can make the trip in about three hours, which is what Helen Liggett discovered in April when she had to visit a client in the Taylor County Jail.

The appetite for a government shutdown is growing among Republicans, who shied away from one during the debt and spending fights in the last Congress but now say one may be needed.
Several high-profile senators have begun laying the groundwork for a shutdown, saying it may be necessary in order to restore “fiscal sanity on the federal budget."

Imagine sitting around the kitchen table, trying to figure out how you're going to pay off that next-generation HDTV you just bought.
Then someone has an idea. Brush off one of the old checker pieces in the attic, assign it a value of, say, $2,000 -- and use that newly minted "coin" to pay the credit card.

These are the two Paul Ryans.

There's "Pragmatic Paul," the compromiser, who on Tuesday voted against most of his GOP House colleagues and with President Obama to raise taxes on wealthy Americans and, on paper at least, add $4 trillion to the national debt.

And there's the uncompromising budget hawk who opposed a bill that allows the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to take on $9.7 billion in new debt to help people and businesses devastated by superstorm Sandy.

The average US worker would pay $679 more in taxes this year under the fiscal cliff deal passed by the Senate early Tuesday morning, while the average member of the top 1 percent of earners would pay $73,633 more, according to Tax Policy Center analysis.

Taxes are going up this week on almost everyone, but one group of top earners will feel the pinch far more than others.

In the nick of time, and amid much political drama, Congress passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act on New Year's Day—averting massive tax increases for nearly all earners that were slated to take effect Jan. 1.

The calculator is a tool to help you understand how current tax policy affects real families and what would happen if we changed that policy.

The last-minute deal Congress approved for the stated purpose of sparing the middle class from tax hikes was iced with a host of special-interest favors -- including tax breaks for Hollywood, Puerto Rico rum producers and the alternative energy industry.
All told, the more than 50 temporary tax breaks, extended for another year thanks to the fiscal crisis package, are worth about $76 billion.
Lawmakers, including those who approved the package earlier this week, are now lambasting the decision to load up the bill in the final hours with the tax break extensions.