A possible third iteration of the Senate's tax extenders bill has surfaced on K Street.

White House budget director Peter Orszag will resign, according to several news reports Monday night. 

Federal officials sent their third bill, for $51.4 million, to BP on Monday for the government's response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing the total cost to nearly $123 million. 

So far, BP and other responsible parties have paid the federal government back for the first two bills, totaling nearly $71 million. That money is borrowed from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which has a roughly $1.6 billion balance. 

The U.S. Coast Guard is responsible for administering the trust fund to ensure that the groups responsible for oil spills pay the affected individuals and communities.  

BP, which is legally responsible for efforts to stop the oil leak, reduce the spread of oil, protect the shoreline and mitigate damages, as well as long-term recovery efforts, said Monday it has spent $2 billion for the costs of containment, cleanup and for the drilling of relief oil wells. 

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Kit Bond (R-Mo.) reiterated their concerns that there may be millions in "waste, fruad and abuse" in spending economic stimulus money on public housing. 

In a recent letter, Grassley and Bond asked Housing and Urban Development Department Secretary Shaun Donovan about the distribution of funds to public housing authorities. 

"Taxpayers deserve an answer to why the federal agency gave tens of millions in stimulus dollars to housing authorities it found to be ‘high risk,'" Grassley said in a release. "Is there so much pressure to shovel stimulus dollars out the door that responsible stewardship has been abandoned?"

In his first letter to HUD on March 15, Grassley questioned problems with a number of housing authorities that had been raised by the HUD Office of Inspector General and not adequately addressed in a HUD response, he said. 

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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will testify Tuesday on Capitol Hill on the federal government's bailout of financial institutions. 

The Congressional Oversight Panel, created to oversee how Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds are spent, is meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday. 

The Treasury Department on Friday announced that repayments to the TARP have for the first time surpassed the total amount of TARP funds that remain outstanding. 

The most recent report from Treasury shows that TARP repayments have hit $194 billion, exceeding the outstanding funds of $190 billion.

Treasury's sale of 1.5 billion shares of Citi stock that provided gross proceeds of $6.18 billion helped surpass the outstanding balance. Treasury expects additional sales of Citi stock to bring in additional cash. 

So far, taxpayers also have received $23 billion from dividends, interest and other income through TARP.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday began running an ad opposing the Disclose Act, contending the bill hinders free speech and therefore counters what the founding fathers sought when drafting the First Amendment. 

"Our forefathers went to great lengths to protect the right to free speech for everyone," the ad states. "Yet the so-called Disclose Act does just the opposite." 

The Chamber contends the bill threatens free speech because it requires the names of chief supporters for political ads be disclosed.

The Treasury Department on Monday announced that 12 broker-dealers will work with Morgan Stanley in the Treasury's sale of Citigroup common stock. 

A bill could be considered this week in the Senate to lower taxes for small businesses by letting them write off more of the cost of purchases, such as equipment and machinery, more quickly than under current law. 

Introduced Monday by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D‐Mont.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R‐Iowa), the legislation will speed up the tax deductions businesses can take for buying new equipment, designed to stimulate investment in small businesses and help create jobs, the lawmakers said in a release. The bill would extend bonus depreciation through 2010. 

The bonus depreciation bill could be considered this week after the Senate dispenses with work on the tax extenders bill, which has been stalled for the past couple of weeks. 

The Senate Finance and Small Business committees are writing another bill to help small businesses that also is rising up the agenda and could come up this week, based on the progress of the tax extenders measure. 

"An extension of bonus depreciation will boost economic activity by hundreds of millions of dollars," Baucus said on the floor Monday. 

Economists on Monday urged congressional staffers against creating a Value Added Tax (VAT) unless lawmakers repealed one of the other taxes currently in law. 

"The VAT could help the economy only if it is used to replace other taxes that are harder on capital formation," said Stephen Entin, president and executive director at the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, in prepared remarks. "It could not help (in fact would weaken) the economy if it were added to other taxes to increase revenues for added government spending."