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OVERNIGHT MONEY: Donovan talks housing recovery
TUESDAY'S BIG STORY:
Let's get together and talk about the housing market: Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan will headline a housing policy summit on Tuesday at the National Press Club that will get into the nitty gritty of the sector's slow but steady recovery.
Donovan will join a bunch of other housing industry experts to examine where the housing market stands and what needs to be done to provide an extra boost to accelerate its pace of recovery.
The general consensus is that the housing market has hit bottom and is on the mend.
Before Congress left for the elections, Donovan chatted with Democratic senators, reassuring them that proposed refinancing legislation, along with a couple of other housing-focused bills, remains a top priority for the Obama administration.
In November, the Senate will consider a bill authored by Sens. Robert Menendez (N.J.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.) that would streamline refinancing for potentially millions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac borrowers.
The measure, which is on President Obama's congressional to-do list, would eliminate appraisal costs and remove barriers to competition in the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). It was recently reworked to address issues raised by the housing industry, the administration and other lawmakers.
Mortgage rates fell to historic lows last week — 30-year loans hit 3.40 percent and 15-year rates were down to 2.73 — making home buying more affordable.
Still, a more robust recovery is being stymied by tight credit availability and bad appraisals.
Meanwhile, the Menendez-Boxer bill has been held up in negotiations over amendments.
Republicans have suggested adding legislation that would wind down government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — another topic of Tuesday's event — as a way to attract private lenders back into the mortgage finance market, an issue that looms for lawmakers next year.
Democrats want to keep this bill simple and take up a Fannie-Freddie measure down the road.
The condition of the housing market has been rarely discussed by Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on the campaign trail, but the issue could crop up in Wednesday's scheduled debate that will focus on domestic policy.
At Tuesday's summit, the future of Fannie and Freddie and how to get private capital back into the mortgage finance market will get a once- or twice-over by top economists and housing market experts.
Stan Humphries, chief economist of Zillow; Paul Willen, senior economist and policy adviser of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum; Jason Gold, senior fellow for Financial Services, Progressive Policy Institute; Gary Thomas, president-elect of the National Association of Realtors; Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders; and Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, will join the broad discussion.
WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR
Creeping up on the cliff: The Urban Institute on Tuesday will hold a discussion on issues surrounding the looming fiscal cliff and what might happen if lawmakers fail to craft an agreement dealing with scheduled spending cuts and expiring tax provisions at the end of the year.
An analysis released Monday found that about 88 percent of households would pay upward of $3,500 more next year in taxes if Congress slips over the cliff.
Those set to tackle the issue are Howard Gleckman, resident fellow at the Urban Institute; Robert Greenstein, president of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum; Donald Marron, director of the Tax Policy Center; and Diane Lim Rogers, chief economist at the Concord Coalition.
Mending Medicare: House Democrats will hold a steering and policy panel hearing on Tuesday to discuss ways to save Medicare, with a focus on the effects of Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's budget proposal, as well as other Republican proposals they say will end the Medicare guarantee.
Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Reps. George Miller (Calif.) and Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) will testify along with Judith Stein, executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, and Karen Davis, president of the The Commonwealth Fund.
A review of the GSP: The U.S. Trade Representative will hold a public hearing on the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) review of country practices petitions relating to Fiji, Indonesia, Ukraine and Iraq on Tuesday.
LOOSE CHANGE
The 47 strikes again: The bad news for Mitt Romney ... two-thirds of voters, according to the Pew Research Center, know that he was the one to make the now widely circulated comments on the 47 percent of Americans who don't owe income taxes. At the same time, more than twice as many voters who know it was Romney see the quip as a negative (55 percent) rather than a positive (23 percent).
A possible silver lining? Roughly half of voters (49 percent) who knew Romney made the comments think the news media is paying too much attention to them. Around four in 10 believe the secretly recorded statement is getting either the right amount of coverage (28 percent) or too little attention (13 percent).
WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
— Bernanke responds to GOP lawmakers
— Dems hit House leaders over farm bill expiration
— Federal regulators hit American Express with $112.5 million in penalties
— GOP leaders mark fiscal New Year with tax warning
— Taxpayer group maps out an escape plan for 2013's 'fiscal cliff'
— Manufacturing bounces back after three months of contraction
— House strips out protection for intelligence officials in whistleblower bill
— Banks, retailers ready to go another round over credit card swipe fees
— Nuke industry presses for change to proliferation rules
Catch us on Twitter: @VickoftheHill, @peteschroeder, @elwasson and @berniebecker3
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