Budget

"Chairman Ryan said ‘we want to have a pre-conference.’ Well you can’t have it both ways," Reid said.

A new economic study claims to have found "serious errors" in a study that fiscal hawks routinely cite when calling for action on the deficit.

For years, policymakers and advocates concerned about the deficit have cited a 2010 study by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff that found modern countries with a debt-to-GDP ratio over 90 percent suffer a significant slowdown in economic growth. 

The study has been widely cited in the media and on Capitol Hill during the push to rein in the deficit.

But a new paper from economists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst that attempted to replicate the findings is casting significant doubt on that claim. The study instead argues that "coding errors, selective exclusion of available data, and unconventional weighting of summary statistics lead to serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and GDP growth."

“We want to go to conference when we feel we have a realistic chance of getting an agreement,” Ryan said.

The White House sent its top economic adviser to the Capitol to ease concerns among Democrats about Social Security cuts. 

The Senate on Monday evening sent its 2014 budget resolution to the House for consideration.

The procedure was a necessary first step before the House could move to convene a conference committee to reconicle its own budget with the vastly different Senate-passed version. The Senate passed the budget in a marathon session last month.

It remains unclear if the House GOP will now move to create a conference, although the move is considered likely even though the conference is unlikely to succeed in reconciling the House and Senate spending visions. 

The House budget cuts spending by $4.6 trillion over ten years in order to balance and contains large tax cuts. The Senate budget does not balance and instead prioritizes job creation through new stimulus spending. It contains nearly $1 trillion in tax increases focused on the wealthy and turns off automatic spending cuts over nine years, replacing them with different mandatory and discretionary cuts.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) may move this week to create a conference committee, aides said. So far, he has waited for Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to negotiate the parameters of a conference.

Ryan wants a "framework" agreement before convening a conference in order to ensure it can actually accomplish something, an aide said. 

The Senate Budget Committee has set up a Wednesday vote on President Obama's nominee to be budget director.

Sylvia Burwel's nomination will be voted on during a roll call vote on April 17, according to a committee notice.

She is expected to clear the panel and to get the backing of the Homeland Security Committee as well. That committee is also expected to vote on Burwell on Wednesday. Burwell, who served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, has not attracted any real opposition from Republicans. Read more...

The Treasury Department reported Monday that foreign governments have increased their holdings of U.S. debt to $5.66 trillion as of February. That is a $12 billion increase from $5.54 trillion in January.

In total, U.S. debt stands at more than $16 trillion.

China remains the top foreign holder of U.S. debt with $1.222 trillion in holdings. It increased its holdings by $8 billion in February. Japan remains number two, with $1.097 trillion. That is a decrease of $6 billion in February.

While conservatives warn that the U.S. budget deficit is unsustainable in the long-run, there is yet to be any sign that Treasury is having difficulty in selling U.S. bonds.

Investor appetite could change this summer as Congress and the White House once again tangle over raising the debt ceiling. The House in the coming weeks plans to move a bill that would prioritize bond payments if the debt ceiling is hit and Treasury is forced to start defaulting on its obligations.

Under a January compromise, the debt ceiling was suspended until May 19. Treasury should be able to take extraordinary measures until about August to ward off a default.

A bipartisan immigration plan with major implications for the economy is set to arrive on Capitol Hill this week.

Business groups are eager to see how the Senate’s Gang of Eight deals with visas for both high-skilled and low-skilled workers in the bipartisan plan. They say an “ample” amount of visas are needed to plug holes in America’s workforce. 

Lawmakers are also be entering their second week of poring over the White House’s budget plan.

Moving a motion to conference the budgets would put the onus on Speaker John Boehner to appoint conferees.

The president wants major funding boosts for the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.