Economy

President Obama's nominee to head up the Labor Department is expected to finally get a vote in a Senate committee after weeks of delays. 

Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, is expected to get a vote on Thursday in the Senate Heath, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee after weeks of delays by Republicans who have said they needed more time to sort through documents and continue to gather answers to their questions. 

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President Obama's nominee to lead the Commerce Department will face her first hurdle next week. 

Penny Pritzker, the billionaire Chicago businesswoman, will sit down next Thursday with the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to discuss a broad swath of issues from creating jobs, increasing exports, to manufacturing, fisheries and weather forecasting. 

Noted for her business acumen, Pritzker has garnered broad support from Democrats and groups such as the the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.

Panel Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told The Hill that he believes she has enough support to gain the panel's approval and be confirmed by the Senate.

British Prime Minister David Cameron wants a global standard under which petroleum and mining companies will report their payments to governments, calling it a way to curb corruption in resource-rich nations.

Cameron, who is meeting with President Obama at the White House on Monday, called for the Group of Eight leading industrial nations to work on the effort at its June gathering in Ireland.

The prime minister, in a broader Wall Street Journal column backing free trade, said greater “transparency” must accompany more open global markets.

“[W]e must lift the veil of secrecy that too often lets corrupt corporations and officials in some countries run rings around the law. The G8 must move toward a global common standard for resource-extracting companies to report all payments to governments, and in turn for governments to report those revenues,” Cameron writes.

Greek officials are cracking down on tax evasion, but with little revenue to show for it.
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Both chambers will dig into the farm bill this week as lawmakers look to strike a deal.

The Senate Agriculture Committee is set to mark up its version of the bill on Tuesday, while its House counterpart will follow suit on Wednesday. 

The biggest difference between the two bills is how they handle food stamps. The House would cut $23 billion from food stamp programs, while the Senate bill would trim just $4 billion.

Leaders in the House and Senate have both committed to floor action in the coming weeks. Farmers are currently operating under an extension of the 2008 farm bill.

The new economic atmosphere might help advance some of Obama’s agenda, but could dim hopes of fiscal reform.

The Treasury Department is confident the debt limit will not need to be raised until at least after Labor Day.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told CNBC on Friday that recent cash flow data is showing the government will be able to pay all its bills at least through the beginning of September, but he still urged Congress to act quickly to hike the nation's borrowing cap.

"Because of the extraordinary measures and the cash flow, that we now can predict, it will not be until at least after Labor Day," he said.

Fannie Mae is making significant strides toward paying back its debt to taxpayers, probably giving the White House and Congress more breathing room on raising the nation's debt-limit. 

The mortgage giant announced Thursday that it would make a $59.4 billion payment to the Treasury Department next month as its balance sheet continues improving along with the housing market. 

The payment, combined with a $7 billion dividend payment from Freddie Mac, which was announced Wednesday, could give Congress and the White House more time to increase the debt limit, which is expected to be reached sometime this fall. 

Prioritizing bond and Social Security payments is no replacement for raising ceiling, agencies say.

The White House announced on Thursday that it is launching a competition for millions of dollars in federal funding to create several more manufacturing innovation institutes across the country as part of an effort to add jobs in the sector. 

The Obama administration said it will provide $200 million across five federal agencies — Defense, Energy, Commerce, NASA and the National Science Foundation — to add three more regional manufacturing-focused hubs, which are designed to accelerate the development and use of cutting-edge manufacturing technologies, boost the nation's competitiveness and strengthen state and local economies. 

The White House calls the hubs "teaching factories" that provide education and training to students and workers.

President Obama included a $1 billion request in his 2014 budget to create 15 institutes across the country as part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI).