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OVERNIGHT MONEY: Next stop ... North Carolina

By Vicki Needham and Peter Schroeder - 09/13/11 06:30 PM ET

WEDNESDAYS BIG STORY:

President Obama is jetting off Wednesday into The Triangle — nah, not Pascal's triangle, although there will be math — he's headed to the technology center of North Carolina to float his $447 billion jobs-creation proposal.

He'll visit a small business, WestStar Precision, a manufacturer of machined components for the aerospace, medical and alternative energy industries established in 1996 and discuss adding jobs to the economy.

He'll also take a run with the wolves during a noon speech at North Carolina State University, home of the Wolfpack and one of the stops Obama made during the 2008 campaign. There again he'll offer up some big numbers: the possibility of millions of new jobs, faster economic growth and a plan to pay for the proposal with tax increases and zapping some tax loopholes.

The president stopped by a school undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation on Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio — the home state of House Speaker John Boehner (R) — vowing to create jobs in the construction industry and promoting $25 billion in school modernization and infrastructure spending.

In pushing for immediate passage of the legislation, Obama said: "My question to Congress is, what on Earth are we waiting for?"

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has an answer. He said Tuesday he's waiting for the White House's budget office to provide specific costs and funding details, including a more thorough breakdown of how the Obama administration wants to pay for the bill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) volunteered his opinion, as well, calling the jobs package a political exercise and “disappointing.”

McConnell’s forceful criticisms of the plan signal Obama will have a difficult time passing any of his proposal through Congress, The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports.

• Déjà vu: Vice President Joe Biden is back to his deficit-reduction efforts on Wednesday, meeting with the Cabinet where Secretary of Labor Linda Solis and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius will announce new initiatives to fight waste and fraud. Biden is expected to ask each top administration official to seek out areas of wasteful spending.

TUESDAY'S RECAP

• Trick or treat: The supercommittee got an eye-opener at its first meeting on Tuesday -- they're running on borrowed time.

Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told the panel's 12 members he'll need their deficit-reduction plan around Halloween, about three weeks before the committee's Thanksgiving deadline, The Hill's Russell Berman reports.

That gives the panel about seven weeks, instead of 10, to figure out how to cut about $1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade. The chore will be further exacerbated if the Obama administration presses for a larger deficit target.

"Our target ought to be in the $4 trillion-plus category, not $1.5 trillion," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday. "That would require courage."

Elmendorf said his office would need “a least a few weeks” to fully score a major proposal for its deficit impact, especially if it contains significant changes to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

“Your decisions must be mostly made by the beginning of November,” he said during the committee’s first official hearing.

• The Great Budget deficit: Black clouds didn't appear, but Elmendorf painted a bleak picture of the nation’s fiscal future and warned the panel that while they'll need to speed up their deficit-carving measures, they also need to be wary of the nation’s ailing economy.  Elmendorf’s message: to avoid slowing the economy even further, the deficit must get worse before it gets better. Berman has the report.

Elmendorf's concerns were further amplified by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who also warned of a "devastating" effect if policymakers do not get serious about the deficit soon, splitting with his successor and current Fed head Ben Bernanke.

"We have been procrastinating for far too long," he told a Senate Finance subcommittee on Tuesday. "If we presume we have a year or two before starting serious long-term restraint, and we turn out to be wrong ... the impact on financial markets could be devastating, The Hill's Peter Schroeder reports.

• A closer look: Want to see the deficit supercommittee in action? Well they launched a website on Tuesday.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR ON WEDNESDAY:

• Tapping the rich: The Senate Finance Committee will dive into the second of its three tax reform hearings this week. While lawmakers discussed how tax reform could help rein in the deficit on Tuesday, the topic du jour on Wednesday will be what it might mean to boost the bill for some of the nation's richest on things like income, capital gains and dividends. The president wants to help pay for his jobs bill by tapping the rich, but Republicans are already lining up in opposition. Academics and experts will be on hand to try and navigate through what has been a persistent fight throughout the Obama presidency.

• Getting growing: Meanwhile, across Capitol Hill, the House Budget Committee will be having a competing tax reform hearing, and this one will take a slightly different take than the one in the Senate. While senators look at taxing the rich more, House lawmakers will be discussing "pro-growth" tax reform, as Republicans maintain that lowering rates will give the economy the boost it sorely needs.

• Tech threats: The House Financial Services Committee will be discussing ways the financial sector remains vulnerable to cyberattacks, and how the government and private sector can better guard against them. On hand to testify will be officials from the Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security. In addition, top security officials from some of the nation's largest companies, including Verizon and Bank of America, will also offer the perspective from the private sector.

• Safeguarding Social Security: Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) will announce legislation to safeguard Social Security for another 75 years. The Strengthen Social Security Campaign, composed of more than 320 national and state organizations representing more than 50 million Americans, has endorsed this legislation.

• School days: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) will announce legislation that would create jobs through the modernization and repair of schools around the country. Brown and DeLauro will outline details of The Fix America’s Schools Today (FAST) Act, legislation that would address this backlog of schools in need of repair.

The hearing roundup:

• Talkin' about some regulations: The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will discuss the economic effects of regulations, a focus for House Republicans this fall. Cass Sunstein with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will testify along with several private-sector experts.

Economic indicators:

• MBA Mortgage Index: The Mortgage Bankers Association releases its weekly report on mortgage applications.

• Producer Price Index: The Labor Department will release its report that tracks the finished goods index most closely because it represents prices for goods that are ready for sale to consumers.

• Retail sales: The Department of Commerce releases the measure of the total receipts of retail stores. The changes in retail sales are widely followed as the most timely indicator of broad consumer spending patterns.

• Business inventories: The Department of Commerce report includes sales and inventory statistics from all three stages of the manufacturing process (manufacturing, wholesale, and retail).

BREAKING MONDAY:

• Poverty increases: Americans living in poverty hit at all-time high.

But Melody Barnes, the president's chief domestic policy adviser, defended the president's efforts to help the poor.

She said Obama has pursued a wide range of policies intended to boost poorer people and give them more opportunities. In particular, she singled out the healthcare reform law as a key achievement. "Million and millions of low-income people ... are already benefiting from the healthcare reform law this president fought for and signed into law against almost insurmountable odds," she said at a forum hosted by the administration.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:

• Banking regulator signs off on 'living wills' for banks.

• Sperling urges passage of jobs bill, leaves it open for separate bills.

• Cantor urges cooperation on jobs bill despite differences.

• Deficit climbs by $134 billion in August.

• House Dems introduce bill to eliminate debt ceiling.

• Obama's bill makes it illegal to discriminate against unemployed.

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