Boehner abandons efforts to reach comprehensive debt-reduction deal  —  House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to cut a far-reaching debt-reduction deal, telling President Obama that a more modest package offers the only politically realistic path to avoiding a default on the mounting national debt.

Boehner Scales Back on Deficit Talks, Citing Tax Increases  —  WASHINGTON — Citing differences over tax revenues, House Speaker John A. Boehner said on Saturday night that he would pull back from joint efforts with President Obama to reach a sweeping $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan tied …

The Worst Time to Slow the Economy  —  It was not surprising to hear the Republican presidential candidates repeat their tiresome claim that excessive government spending and borrowing were behind Friday's terrible unemployment report.  It was depressing to hear President Obama sound as if he agreed with them.

John Boehner Wants To Scale Down Debt Talks  —  The collapse of negotiations around $4 trillion in debt reduction and House Speaker John Boehner's preference to scale the scope of discussion back to $2 trillion in hopes that will somehow generate a deal with no tax increases isn't surprising.

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Like Reagan at Reykjavik, Boehner passes on a bad deal  —  So in the end, it was bit of a Ronald Reagan moment for John Boehner on Saturday.  Just as the U.S. president walked away from a bad arms control agreement with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986 …

U.S. Is Deferring Millions in Pakistani Military Aid  —  WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is suspending and, in some cases, canceling hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Pakistani military, in a move to chasten Pakistan for expelling American military trainers and to press its army to fight militants more effectively.