The Congressional "super committee" failed to reach a consensus about deficit reduction. But given a chance to tinker with the budget, ordinary Americans playing an online computer game called Budget Hero have made some big decisions. Users make decisions about spending in areas like defense, health care, Social Security, education and infrastructure and can see the effects. 

China is weighing in on U.S. lawmakers' failure to make any meaningful progress on the government debt limit, during increasingly tense budget talks in the White House. China holds more than $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, and a failure to reach a debt agreement would result in a credit downgrade for the United States, and devalue China’s holdings.