The White House threatened a veto Friday of a Republican bill keeping the interest rates on federal student loans from doubling this summer, objecting that the measure would finance its $5.9 billion cost by abolishing a health care program.

The House GOP measure would let employers with fewer than 500 workers deduct 20 percent of their domestic earnings this year a calculation that would let businesses show a smaller income before determining the taxes they owe.

Republicans have ignored a White House veto threat and pushed an election-year, $46 billion tax cut for most employers through a sharply divided House.

Republicans cast themselves as champions of small business as they pushed a bill toward House passage Thursday that would cut taxes for nearly every employer in the country. Democrats called the measure merely the latest GOP effort to funnel federal help to those who are already successful.

Senate Republicans derailed a Democratic "Buffett rule" bill Monday forcing the nation's top earners to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes, using the day before Americans' taxes are due to defy President Barack Obama on one of his signature election-year issues.

President Barack Obama's proposal to impose a "Buffett rule" tax on the rich is generating enormous political wattage, but the plan itself would directly affect only a tiny fraction of Americans.

Republicans have pushed an election-year $3.5 trillion budget through a divided House that showcases their plans for trimming federal deficits and contrasts sharply with how President Barack Obama and Democrats would tackle the nation's fiscal problems.

Moderate, secular and well-educated people propelled Mitt Romney to victory in Ohio's Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, an exit poll of voters showed. Rick Santorum drew robust support from the state's most ardent conservatives and eked out a modest margin among the working class, whom he has targeted in his...