OVERNIGHT MONEY: Sell job continues

by Vicki Needham, Bernie Becker, Erik Wasson and Peter Schroeder - 09/27/11 11:16 PM ET

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR:

The Capitol may be mostly dark — except for the staffers, of course — but there’s plenty else going on in Washington on Wednesday.

Immigration push: Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor, headlines an event Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on immigration reform. The Chamber wants Congress to overhaul immigration limits for highly skilled workers, and Bloomberg will outline the specific changes and benefits he sees in doing that.

The Chamber and other prominent business organizations would like to see the U.S. ease its restrictions on H-1B skilled workers, an idea Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate, also included in his own jobs plan. The Chamber would also like to make it easier for foreigners on temporary student visas to get work visas.

{mosads}Still, the issue is a sensitive one, given the country’s roughly 9 percent unemployment rate and the partisan divide over immigration policy. The Chamber has argued that not opening the door further to more skilled workers makes the U.S. firms less competitive and hurts American workers as well.

House call: Shaun Donovan, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is slated to speak tomorrow at a conference devoted to — you guessed it — housing.

The National Housing Conference and Center for Housing Policy are hosting their annual conference on state and local housing policy, with Donovan slated to give the keynote address. Given the continued struggles of the housing market, coupled with the belt-tightening happening at state and local governments nationwide, Donovan will surely have plenty to say.

But if he’s looking to not speak entirely of doom and gloom, Donovan did get a bit of a pick-me-up today, as the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index reported home prices grew nationwide for the fourth month in a row in July.

Granted, they grew by just 0.9 percent — which, when adjusted for seasonal factors, effectively means no growth. But for this ailing housing market, no news qualifies as good news.

Busy day: Donovan will be giving his vocal chords a workout tomorrow, as he’s also scheduled to speak at the Commerce Department’s Minority Business Development Agency. Also scheduled to appear: Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary; Dan Tangherlini, an assistant Treasury secretary; and Karen Mills, the head of the Small Business Administration.

The think tank circuit: Brookings is set to hold a back-and-forth on federal hiring reform, with John Berry of the Office of Personnel Management expected to appear. Elsewhere, the Peterson Institute for International Economics will talk about how Europe and the U.S. can learn from past debt crises.

BREAKING TUESDAY:

Thursday’s big story: The House on Thursday plans to sign off on a portion of the spending deal approved Monday in the Senate, writes The Hill’s Russell Berman.

The House intends to approve a one-week stopgap measure by unanimous consent that would avert a government shutdown once federal funding runs out after Friday, the end of the current fiscal year. The measure extends federal funding through Oct. 4.

The one-week continuing resolution serves as a bridge to a six-week stopgap spending bill that the Senate also approved Monday night. The House is expected to consider — and pass — that measure next week when lawmakers return to Washington following a recess. Approving the one-week bill by unanimous consent prevents members from having to cut short their break, and it is contingent on no members showing up to object to a deal and forcing a roll call vote.

Where the supercommittee stands: The 12 lawmakers on the deficit-reducing congressional supercommittee talked among themselves for hours upon hours on Tuesday, but had little to share with reporters on their way out, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Leaving a second marathon meeting in as many days, Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-Wash.) comment — “We had a really good day” — appears to have been par for the course.

Not so much: The Journal also reports that a new academics study asserts that a certain piece of conventional wisdom among economists — that the benefits of trade with China outweighed the negatives — might be overstated. In fact, the study finds that U.S. regions most in economic competition with China have seen overall drops in employment, eating into some of the benefits of lower-priced Chinese goods.

A look overseas: Greece could be paving the way for a new property tax, but The New York Times still calls the European response to its economic crisis “too little, too late.”

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Durable Orders: The Department of Commerce releases the report that measures the dollar volume of orders, shipments and unfilled orders of durable goods (defined as goods whose intended lifespan is three years or more). Orders are considered a leading indicator of manufacturing activity, and the market often moves on this report despite the volatility and large revisions that make it a less than perfect indicator.

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

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:

— Senate sets up procedural vote on China currency legislation

— Senate gives financial oversight panel its insurance expert

— Consumers remain skittish on economy

— Report: Traffic congestion costs billions, weighs on the economic recovery

— Spending deal spares post office

— Home prices climb for fourth straight month

— Ford denies pulling anti-bailout ad after White House call

— CREW sues SEC over destroyed documents

— Proponents see opening to abandon yearly budget process

— House Dems look to help service members with their housing