WHITE HOUSE

Tea Party conservatives scored their biggest political triumph with a debt-ceiling deal that cuts federal spending, but their hardline tactics could risk a voter backlash in the 2012 elections.

Establishing the contours of a massive debt deal consumed all of Congress, but filling in the $1.5 trillion details will be the responsibility of a mere dozen lawmakers.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he is not sure whether the bitterly fought debt agreement to be considered Tuesday by the Senate will avoid a downgrade of the U.S. top-tier credit rating.

Politicians and lobbyists exhausted from a bruising and tortuous debate over a debt deal are already turning their attention to a dozen-member Congressional "super committee" that will be responsible for laying out some $1.5 trillion in cuts. Will they be able to find them?

The debt-ceiling deal hammered out by the Republicans and the Democrats in the Capitol has averted the risk of calamitous cuts in federal spending, while ensuring failure to service debt will not arise. However, analysts say some big questions remain to be answered.

The bill, which will cut federal spending by up to $2.4 trillion over 10 years, raises the debt ceiling, and now goes to the Senate, where that chamber is expected to vote on it, and pass it, by Tuesday, late afternoon. If all goes as planned, the bill will be on President Obama's desk, and his signature will avert a default.

Interest rates on most Treasury bills fell on Monday after a tentative deal among top Washington lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling soothed anxiety of a sovereign debt default.

A new study finds that adults in Washington D.C. abuse more drugs and alcohol than anywhere else in the nation.

Leaders from both, major political parties fanned-out across Capitol Hill Monday night to secure votes to pass the bipartisan debt deal bill, which would also raise the debt ceiling, and avert a U.S. Government default. The strongest opposition will occur in the House, but two-chamber passage is expected by 1 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

The White House and congressional leaders scrambled for enough support from skeptical lawmakers on Monday to push through an 11th-hour deal to raise the U.S. borrowing limit and avert a devastating debt default.

Wall Street fell for a sixth day on Monday on renewed angst about Washington's ability to reach a deal on raising the U.S. debt ceiling and following disappointing news from the manufacturing sector.

The Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) estimate that the deal deal will cut the deficit by at least $2.1 trillion may not only save the debt deal -- it may save the nation's two, major political parties.

President Barack Obama will continue to push for an extension of the payroll tax cut despite that not being part of a deficit-cutting deal reached by lawmakers, the White House said on Monday.

Stocks fell a sixth day on Monday as weaker-than-expected U.S. manufacturing data and uncertainty over the debt deal in Washington kept the mood skittish on Wall Street.

Both the House and the Senate plan to vote Monday night on a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

The next battle already looms on the legislative horizon: it's the battle over the 2001/2003 Bush tax cuts.

Matt Damon delivers moving speech in protest against standardized testing.

The White House has one important tool in its arsenal to influence congressional talks over further deficit reduction measures in the coming months: the expiry of Bush-era tax cuts at the end of 2012.

After months of vitriolic discord, Republican and Democratic lawmakers were expected to vote on Monday on a White House-backed deal to raise the U.S. borrowing limit and avert an unprecedented default.

Congressional leaders and President Obama reached a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling in an effort to avoid the first U.S. default but a series of crucial votes in both chambers of Congress remain before the President can sign it into law.

A weary-looking President Obama told reporters late Sunday that a deal had been reached between the leaders of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives to raise the federal debt ceiling and avoid the first U.S. default, although a series of votes by all members in Congress is needed to make the ceiling raise a reality.