OVERNIGHT MONEY: Taxes, farm bill on tap in House Rules

TUESDAY'S BIG STORY: 

Follow the rules: The House Rules Committee is set for a busy week in the chamber, considering measures to extend current tax and agricultural policy for a year.

In addition to the bill to extend Bush-era tax rates for a year, the panel also will consider a bill that looks to grease the wheels for tax reform in 2013.

And with the farm bill teetering on the brink, House Rules is scheduled to discuss a proposal to extend the 2008 farm bill for another year, with some modifications.

For the most part, the House’s last week before its August recess is likely to concentrate more on political messaging than actual lawmaking.

With that in mind, top lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are expected to testify before the Rules panel about their respective tax plans.

Republicans remain committed to extending the 2001 and 2003 tax rates for a year, after the Senate voted last week to cut those rates off for family income above $250,000 a year.

GOP lawmakers have said that the economy is too soft right now to be raising taxes on anyone — especially with more than 900,000 small businesses in line to see a tax increase if the Democratic plan wins the day.

On Monday, House Democrats introduced legislation that mirrored the proposal passed by the Senate last week, and urged Republicans once more to move forward on tax relief for the middle class.

Rep. Sandy Levin (Mich.), the top Democrat at the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, also trashed the GOP proposal to put in place a mechanism for tax reform next year, calling the Republican outline for tax reform “terrible.”

The House this week is debating the Bush tax cuts, which are expected to be fully litigated after the November election, while other top issues, like a Russia trade bill and a measure to fund the government, look more and more likely to be pushed off until at least September. 

Observers speculate that the farm bill part might never happen because, as of Monday ,the votes did not appear there for a one-year measure.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR 

Defense spending: Senate appropriators on Tuesday will take a closer look at the Pentagon's more than $600 billion spending plan for fiscal 2013. 

Debate over the spending plan in the Senate has mostly taken place behind closed doors, while the appropriators' counterparts on the Senate Armed Services Committee gave a thumbs-up to a $634 billion plan on July 2, which included $543 billion in discretionary funds for Defense Department and nuclear weapons programs in the Department of Energy and $89 billion in war funding, almost all of it in Afghanistan.

The full Senate has no plans to vote on the bill, but it will set a marker for negotiations in the fall or next spring on the final spending bills. 

Earlier this month, the House approved a massive $606 billion spending bill covering Pentagon operations and the ongoing war in Afghanistan. 

Los Angeles bound: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will chat about the U.S. and global economies with the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

Geithner also will meet with local business leaders for a roundtable discussion on the state of the economy held by the Los Angeles Coalition for the Economy and Jobs. 

The meeting comes after a meeting with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble on the island of Sylt. 

Geithner and Schäuble emphasized the need to continue working together on global financial issues and the health of the international economy. 

“While again stressing the need for policymakers to adopt and implement all reform steps required to deal with the financial crisis and crisis of confidence, Secretary Geithner and Minister Schäuble also took note of statements from European leaders last week to take whatever steps are necessary to safeguard financial stability in the Euro area," according to the Treasury Department. 

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Personal income: The Commerce Department releases June figures on personal income, which measures income from all sources, the largest component of which is wages and salaries. Beyond that, there are many other categories of income, including rental income, government subsidy payments, interest income and dividend income. 

S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Index: Home prices could have ticked up in May in the nation's 20 largest metropolitan areas, a housing price index report could say on Tuesday. 

Consumer Confidence: The Conference Board's monthly report could show that confidence continued to slip in July as the economy teeters. The report can be helpful in predicting shifts in consumer spending. 

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

— Legislation to prevent government shutdown will wait until September

— Lawmaker to Geithner: Block China oil deal until royalties are paid

— GOP senators declare 'Meat Monday' in slap to USDA

— House to vote on bill terminating federal workers who don't pay their taxes

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