Washington

The Federal Open Market Committee is in the middle of a two-day meeting on interest rates. Chances are good that tomorrow the federal funds rate will be trimmed again, despite worries about rising prices. John Dimsdale reports.

Stockbroker and business analyst David Johnson chats with host Kai Ryssdal about what happened on Wall Street this week and what may lie ahead.

The Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman is stepping down. Her resignation is one of many which have left government regulatory agencies severely understaffed in the last year of the Bush Presidency. Jeremy Hobson reports.

This year President Bush proposed a federal budget of more than $3 trillion. Kai Ryssdal talks to Scott Bittle, author of "Where Does the Money Go?," about how taking a closer look at the spending of federal dollars could help avoid future deficits.

Washington is in high gear to put together a plan to ward off a recession, and special interest groups are all pressing for a piece of the economic pie. John Dimsdale reports.

The $516 billion federal spending bill OK'd by the House and now before the Senate funds 14 cabinet agencies and the war in Afghanistan. It's also got 9,000 earmarks in it. Jeremy Hobson has this holiday spending tale.

The federal fiscal year started more than two months ago but Congress still hasn't passed 11 of the 12 spending bills to fund the government. And that's not the only economic legislation that's going nowhere. Jill Barshay reports.

If you live in Washington, D.C.; Boston or San Francisco, you're in the top three walkable urban areas of the country, according to ranking from The Brookings Institution published today. And as the report's author Chris Leininger tells Kai Ryssdal, consumers want to walk -- even in L.A.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission wants to relax existing restrictions on media cross-ownership in the country's 20 biggest media markets. The proposal is drawing skepticism from different sides of the issue. Bob Moon reports.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote in his recently released memoir that he was disappointed Republicans didn't deliver smaller government and lower spending. Commentator Benjamin Barber says he should stop believing the party rhetoric.