OVERNIGHT MONEY: House GOP budget gets airing at markup

The proposal calls for two individual tax brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — nixes the Alternative Minimum tax and lowers corporate rates to 25 percent. 

Democrats can be expected to offer their own alternative substitute amendment in committee and a full alternative budget on the House floor, which is expected to include tax provisions that would let the highest bracket rise back up to Clinton-era levels. 

{mosads}The Democrats’ budget is expected sometime next week, an aide told The Hill. 

Progressives might balk even at the spending cuts in the main Democratic alternative, and the Progressive Caucus, as usual, is planning its own budget. 

House liberals voted against last August’s debt deal, which split the caucus 95 votes to 95 votes.

Ryan’s new budget got mixed reviews from nonpartisan budget deficit hawks on Tuesday. It calls for $1.8 trillion in mandatory spending cuts without fully fleshing these out.

“The assumptions for discretionary spending appear unrealistic, both in the short term and longer,” the nonpartisan Concord Coalition said. 

It noted that the budget increases defense spending so its cuts to discretionary spending are deeper than they otherwise appear.

“While the basic idea is sound, Ryan’s budget fails to make clear just how extensive the paring-back of these ‘tax expenditures’ would need to be in order to lower rates to the proposed 10 percent and 25 percent brackets,” Concord’s Bob Bixby said. “The lowering of rates is specified, but the tax exemptions and deductions that would be eliminated are not,” he said. 

“In order to lower rates to Ryan’s preferred levels, it is likely that almost all tax expenditures would have to be eliminated.”

The New America Foundation’s Maya MacGuineas praised Ryan for once again putting Medicare cuts on the table, but said his tax plan lacked details.

“While a fundamental overhaul of the tax code is in order, to meet his target of revenue neutrality with rates of 10 and 25 percent would require extremely aggressive reductions in tax expenditures, none of which are specified,” she said.

Steve Bell of the Bipartisan Policy Center said it would be difficult to score the tax plan given its vagueness.   

The White House and Democrats said the Republican budget would ‘shower’ the rich with tax breaks.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the Republican plan to cut $5.3 trillion in spending over the next decade “fails the test of balance, fairness and shared responsibility,” and would “end Medicare as we know it.”

BUDGET ROUND UP

— The budget released would slash federal Medicaid spending by $810 billion over 10 years and give states more flexibility to run the program as they see fit.

— CBO: Medicare benefits would likely shrink under the latest proposal, says the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

— GOP presidential candidates have offered their support for Ryan’s 2013 budget.

— Ryan’s budget plan would add more to the deficit over 10 years than if Congress kept to the status quo, undermining claims of its fiscal impact.

— Sen. John Thune (S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, says Ryan’s budget proposal would likely divide Republicans in the upper chamber.

— Democrats are employing a divide-and-conquer approach on a Republican budget proposal they argue shreds the social safety net and endangers the future of the middle class. 

— The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee says middle-income taxpayers would bear the burden of a tax overhaul under a Republican budget proposal released Tuesday. 

— House Approps chief endorses spending levels in Ryan’s budget even though he said he wanted it to be higher.

— Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said House Republicans have broken last year’s debt-ceiling agreement with their new budget plan.

— House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) signaled Tuesday that he is not on board with the $33 billion in cuts to farm subsidies.

— House Republicans offer up tough words for the Dodd-Frank financial reform law in their latest budget proposal, but stop short of calling for it to be erased altogether.

— Ryan ripped Dem ‘scare tactics’ ahead of GOP budget release

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR 

Going abroad: The House Oversight Committee will have an international flair tomorrow, as it devotes its morning hearing on the European debt crisis, and what it might mean for the United States. As members probe the issue, they will hear from none other than Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, two economic point-men.

Geithner spent much of Tuesday assuring Republicans that taxpayer dollars were not going to be at risk supporting Greece. Tomorrow, Bernanke will likely have to field some questions about the Fed’s attempts to lend Europe a helping hand, mainly by cutting how much it charges foreign banks to borrow in dollars.

Subpoena time: After three committees legally compelled executives with collapsed firm MF Global to testify last year, the House Financial Services is taking another bite of that apple on Wednesday. In December, they heard from former Democratic Sen. and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Now, members of its investigatory subcommittee will convene tomorrow to consider another subpoena for an executive with the firm, as lawmakers continue to examine how $1.6 billion in customer funds could have gone missing when the trading company went belly-up. This time around, lawmakers are expected to approve a subpoena for Edith O’Brien, an assistant treasurer at the company thought to have key knowledge on the firm’s moves in its final days.

Budgets, budgets everywhere: Senate appropriators will talk to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler and they will take a look at the Army’s budget. 

On the House side, spending chiefs will hear from Housing and Urban Development Department Secretary Shaun Donovan, Karen Mills, administrator of the Small Business Administration, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and the heads of NASA and the IRS, along with the Labor Department on veterans training programs and U.S. Central Command. 

Russia and human rights: Meanwhile on the trade front, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on human-rights issues in Russia. The hearing comes at an awkward time for the Obama administration, which is trying to pass a Russia trade bill that would give the nation permanent normal trade relations and repeal the Jackson-Vanik provision that was put into place in 1974 to press Communist nations on human-rights and emigration issues. 

This little light of mine: A group of Democratic senators is set to unveil legislation on Tuesday that it says will strengthen campaign disclosure laws and push back against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

The senators — who include Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) — have also pressed the IRS in recent weeks to implement a “bright line” test spelling out how much some ideological groups should be dabbling in politics. The lawmakers said they would introduce legislation on the matter if the IRS did not act. 

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) have asked the IRS whether Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status are being looked at more closely by the IRS than other organizations.

On the road again: President Obama leaves Wednesday morning for what our friends at The Hill’s E2 Wire are calling a “two-day, four-state energy roadshow.”

The president’s Wednesday stops include a Nevada solar facility, and oil and natural-gas fields in New Mexico.

With gas prices on a rise — and Republicans making a concerted effort to tar the administration as to blame — senior administration officials say Obama will further underscore his support for energy sources both new and old. 

BREAKING NEWS

Getting ahead on insider trading: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sought to overcome a potential filibuster on a motion to create a conference committee for the STOCK Act on Tuesday by abandoning the Senate-passed version of the bill and filing a cloture motion to concur with the House-passed version.

Reid said at least one senator had threatened to force three time-intensive votes that could consume weeks of the upper chamber’s time before the Senate version would be sent to a conference committee. Instead of taking three votes, Reid suggested the Senate could cast a single vote to agree to adopt the House-passed version of the bill.

Not really making a dent: Legislation codifying President Obama’s “Buffett Rule” would not raise enough money to replace the Alternative Minimum Tax and would put a relatively small dent in the federal debt, according to a new study by an official congressional scorekeeper.

The Joint Committee on Taxation said, in a letter circulated Tuesday, that the rule would raise just under $31 billion between 2012 and 2022. 

Time for a break — a tax break, that is: House Republicans on Wednesday will unveil — around 2 p.m. — their proposal to give small businesses a temporary 20 percent tax cut, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Tuesday.

The bill has been in the works for weeks, and Republicans hope to time its passage off the House floor to coincide with Tax Day on April 15.

LOOSE CHANGE

A no-go for Export-Import Bank: The Senate shot down an amendment to reauthorize the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank on Tuesday, handing a setback to Boeing in a lobbying battle against one of its own customers, Delta Air Lines.

The Ex-Im reauthorization, put forward as an amendment to a jobs bill passed by the House, was rejected in a 55-44 vote.

The Senate failed to approve a four-year reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank on Tuesday after Senate GOP leaders forced members who support the bill on its merits to vote against it on procedural grounds. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) strongly opposed the measure and wants to limit Ex-Im’s reach, especially for aircraft sales.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS 

MBA Mortgage Index: The Mortgage Bankers Association releases its weekly report on mortgage application volume. 

Existing Home Sales: The National Association of Realtors releases figures for sales of existing homes, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops. The housing market has shown signs of improvement in recent months.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

— Senate Dems officially set 2013 spending levels
— House sidesteps Senate $109B highway bill for short-term bill
— House calls for administration to sell off excess properties
— Fed reaps $77 billion profit in 2011
— Homebuilding slows but permits hit their highest level in three years

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