In a rare point of progress for a Congress that has been paralyzed by partisanship, lawmakers passed three free trade deals with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

As we’ve previously noted, the long-held image of the poor, underpaid public servant is far from representative of today’s federal worker. An analysis by USA Today revealed just how good the past few years have been for the Washington workforce.

The Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2011 budget year, which began on Oct. 1, will climb to $1.4 trillion. Over the next decade, it will total $8.47 trillion.

As we highlighted on Friday, the CBO released preliminary totals for spending in the 2010 fiscal year. Today’s Wall Street Journal explores where in the budget these increases took place.

The Hill today reports that, in addition to spending and tax policy recommendations for deficit reduction, the fiscal commission may consider adding teeth to current budget rules to ‘help’ lawmakers stick to the budgets they pass.

This morning, Michael Medved argues in USA Today that the government poses a greater threat to the nation’s economy than any of the recently reviled corporations.

Today’s Investors Business Daily opines on the dangers of hiking taxes in attempt to address the deficit crisis.

Today’s Washington Post reports on the Pentagon’s attempt to cut spending by $100 billion: Pentagon officials said Monday that they plan to try to cut as much as $100 billion over the next five years out of the billions of dollars spent annually in buying weapons systems and other services from outside contractors. Gates said [...]

Today’s Washington Post discusses the U.S.’ greatest fiscal challenge — stabilizing the US debt: An international push to cut deficits in half by 2013 may sound impressive, but the United States already is on track to meet that target without significant policy changes. The harder task for President Obama will be achieving a second goal [...]

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