The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget on Friday criticized House Democratic leaders for not fully offsetting the cost of the so-called tax extenders bill.

Haiti's $36 million debt to the World Bank was canceled to further spur their recovery from a massive earthquake in January. 

Wiping out the country's International Development Fund debt was aided by 13 countries, the World Bank announced Friday. 

"Reliving Haiti's remaining debt is part of our effort to pursue every avenue to help Haiti's reconstruction efforts," said World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick in a statement. "We will continue to work in close cooperation with the Haitian government and our international partners to support the country's recovery and longer-term development."

The World Bank has provided $479 million in grants to support the recovery through June 2011. The bank also is involved in the Haiti Reconstruction Fund, which has donors from several countries. 

It's the second time in the past year that Haiti has been granted debt relief. In July 2009, $1.2 billion of debt was forgiven. 

Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland all contributed to erase the debt. 

Congress should consider eliminating the caps on damages caused oil spills as the cost nears $1 billion, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in an interview Friday. 

"There is a movement afoot in Congress for that. Why have a cap?" Pelosi said in an interview with Bloomberg's Al Hunt, scheduled to air tonight. 

Pelosi had previously backed the idea of raising the cap from $75 million to $10 billion for economic damages. 

"You would hope that there would not be more than $10 billion of damage, but understand it is for each episode," she said.

Package includes an extension of unemployment benefits and the "doc fix."

The House Labor chairman says unemployed continue to look for work while getting benefits.

After nearly a week of negotiations, the House passed a two-pronged tax extenders package Friday that includes an extension of unemployment benefits and fix for Medicare payments to doctors. 

The approximately $116 billion two-piece bill, includes a $39.5 billion extension of unemployment benefits through November, which isn't offset and $53 billion of tax extensions, summer jobs and the Pigford case settlement for black farmers, which is paid for with tax increases on investment fund managers. The total of the first package is around $92.5 billion. 

The second part of the bill is $23 billion for a 19-month "doc fix," a term referring to delaying a cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors, which easily passed 245-171. 

The Senate left town for the Memorial Day recess before dealing with the measures, meaning unemployment benefits for some will lapse next week. 

Another $600 million in funding was made available Friday for states' capital investment and surface transportation projects.

The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants (TIGER II) will be awarded on a competitive basis to projects that have a "significant impact on the nation, region or metropolitan area and can create jobs," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday.

"This money will go to the kinds of projects that will help spur lasting economic growth, reduce gridlock, provide safe, affordable and environmentally sustainable transportation choices and create jobs," LaHood said in a statement.  

The first round of $1.5 billion in TIGER grants garnered 1,400 applications from 50 states, worth an estimated $60 billion. 

"The enormous numbers of of applications we received for the first round of TIGER grants shows that we have a backlog of worthwhile transportation projects waiting for funding," LaHood said.

House Democrats on Friday approved the rule on the tax extenders package, but suffered 29 defections.

House Democrats will delay by a year the proposed tax increase on hedge fund managers, raising $17.7 billion over 10 years. 

The restructured tax extenders package, under consideration in two parts on the House floor Friday, changes the effective date of the carried interest provision from Jan. 1, 2010, to Jan. 1, 2011. 

The change will provide time for investment fund managers to adjust to the new tax, according to a release this morning from the House Ways and Means Committee. 

The plan taxes fund managers' performance fee as ordinary income, at up to 39.6 percent, instead of the 15 percent capital gains rate.