OVERNIGHT MONEY: House Republicans meet to reach a deal on their 2013 budget

By Vicki Needham, Bernie Becker, Peter Schroeder and Erik Wasson - 03/07/12 07:00 PM ET

THURSDAY'S BIG STORY:

Time for a budget pow-pow: House Republicans will bring in Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Thursday to solve the budget stalemate within their own ranks.

Cantor will meet behind closed doors with Budget Committee members in an attempt to hammer out a final deal on 2013 spending limits for panel Chairman Paul Ryan's budget.

The discussion surrounds whether to keep the discretionary spending levels set in the August debt-ceiling deal with the White House or to cut spending more deeply in their 2013 budget resolution. Conservatives in Cantor's conference are pushing for deeper cuts.

Members on Thursday said they believed a compromise was on the horizon and that Cantor could bridge differences within the conference.

Ryan (R-Wis.) wants an agreement this week so he can craft his his budget proposal during next's week recess.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office will release a revised budget baseline that Ryan will use to construct his blueprint.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that he is “uncomfortable” with cutting discretionary spending below the $1.047 trillion level set in the deal last summer. He is suggesting that budget-cutters aim to trim mandatory spending, including entitlements.

Amid the private talks, the House Budget Committee will allow members to testify before the panel and make suggestions. Could be a long line out that door this time around.

What number will they choose?

Budget committee members think the GOP will unveil a budget with lower numbers for 2013. While the Republican Study Committee wants $931 billion as the new cap, the number is more likely in-between, members said.

The Senate is skipping the budget resolution stage and has started writing spending bills based on the budget deal's agreement — $1.047 trillion.

Any difference between the chambers will require additional work between appropriators to reconcile the differences — which in every other year would mean lawmakers would need a continuing resolution or a solution on all 12 spending bills before the 2013 fiscal year begins, on Oct. 1.

Most legislation will be difficult to pass already, as the 2012 election season gets into full swing, meaning it would be another agenda item a lame-duck Congress would have to deal with after November.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR

Tribal troubles: The Senate Banking Committee tomorrow will continue its discussion of the continued woes of the housing market, but with a twist. Thursday's full committee hearing will be devoted to the housing troubles facing the Native American population. Tribal communities have been hit so hard by housing woes that some are using Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers designed for temporary disaster relief as permanent abodes. Officials from the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Health and Human Services and Interior will be on hand to offer their expertise.

Keep 'em coming: Cabinet secretaries continue their jaunts up to Capitol Hill on Thursday with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on her agency's budget.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testifies before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Transportation, while Attorney General Eric Holder will talk to Senate Appropriations about the Justice Department's budget.

Carol Galante, acting commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, discusses the agency's budget with a Senate Appropriations subpanel.

The National Park Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Defense health program and food safety budgets all go before various House Appropriations subcommittees on Thursday.

Streamlining FEMA: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will take up a bill designed to cut red tape in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s emergency preparedness and disaster assistance programs and help communities recover from disasters more quickly and cost-effectively.

BREAKING NEWS

Give me some credit: Borrowing picked up in January as consumers bought more cars and took out student loans. Consumer borrowing rose by $17.8 billion in January, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. That followed similar gains in December and November. The gains for those three months were the largest in a decade and helped consumer borrowing climb to a seasonally adjusted $2.5 trillion. That nearly matches the pre-recession borrowing level.

LOOSE CHANGE

More budget recs: The House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday officially recommended that the House budget cut no more than $23 billion from farm programs over the next 10 years. President Obama and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have looked for deeper cuts. The committee's official "views and estimates" letter was agreed to by Democrats and Republicans — it warns the committee that the automatic cuts triggered by last year's failure of the debt supercommittee would cause some $15 billion to be cut next year from agriculture programs, and urges that the sequester be replaced. The bipartisan letter also warns against regulatory overreach by the administration when applying the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Vested in voting: The U.S. Postal Service officially announced on Wednesday that it would take a break from closing facilities after August to avoid affecting vote-by-mail efforts in the November election. That means, due to a previous agreement USPS struck with lawmakers, the agency will only potentially close certain offices between May 15 and Aug. 31. The Postal Service said Wednesday that it could conceivably then pick up its consolidation efforts in 2013.

As The Hill reported last month, officials in some states had expressed concern that the agency's plans to close more than 200 processing centers would delay ballots sent through the mail. At the time, postal officials said USPS would work with state election officials and suspend closures after August to minimize any impact on the election and the holiday mailing season.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Initial Claims: The Department of Labor releases its weekly filings for jobless benefits. Claims have been reflecting a strengthening job market in recent weeks. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent last month and the February figures are due out on Friday. On Wednesday, ADP Employer Services said private-sector employers added 216,000 jobs last month and upwardly revised January's figures. A separate report on Wednesday signaled that companies will need to keep hiring to meet growing demand.

Challenger Job Cuts: The Chicago firm releases its measure of how many jobs cuts are planned by U.S. employers last month.

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