–Vice President Biden To Reconvene Budget Talks Tuesday, Wed and Thurs
–White House, Speaker Boehner Seek Budget Deal By Early July
–Tsy’s Geithner To Testify Weds On State of Global Financial System
–House Panel To Hold Monday Hearing on NYSE-Deutsche Boerse Merger

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Vice President Joe Biden’s budget talks with
congressional leaders are expected to shift into a much higher gear this
week as both the White House and Congress attempt to see if a broad
agreement can be reached this month.

Biden is scheduled to meet with lawmakers Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday next week.

The Biden talks are exploring a deficit reduction package that can
be developed to coincide with this summer’s vote on debt ceiling
legislation.

Biden is negotiating with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate
Minority Whip Jon Kyl, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Dan
Inouye, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Assistant House
Minority Leader Jim Clyburn and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat
on the House Budget Committee.

The administration is represented by Biden, Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner, White House budget director Jack Lew and the director of the
National Economic Council Gene Sperling.

House Speaker John Boehner has said it’s important to forge a
deficit reduction agreement by the end of June so a vote on debt ceiling
legislation can occur well before the August 2 deadline the Treasury has
set.

Kyl, the Senate Minority Whip, told reporters last week that
Republicans want a package of more than $2.4 trillion in savings over a
decade or more as a condition for increasing the debt ceiling by that
same amount.

Biden has said the talks have identified potentially large budget
savings, declaring a few weeks ago that “we’re in a position where we’ll
be able to get to well above a trillion dollars pretty quick in terms of
what would be a downpayment on the process.”

While the Biden talks focus on deficit reduction, some in Congress
believe there should be a short-term focus on stimulus measures. Senate
Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said last week it would make sense
for Congress to spend an $100 billion on infrastructure projects to
boost job growth.

But he added that the political climate is currently not conducive
to passing additional stimulus measures.

Republican leaders have argued that Congress should pass the three
pending American bilateral trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and
Colombia to boost job growth.

In other action this week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will
testify Wednesday at 10 a.m. before the House Financial Services
Committee on Treasury’s annual report on the state of the international
financial system.

A House Financial Services subcommittee will hold a hearing Tuesday
at 2 p.m. on the role of the U.S. in the World Bank and development
banks. Lael Brainard, Treasury’s undersecretary for international
affairs, will testify.

Another subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee will
hold a hearing Tuesday at 10 a.m. on whether the Dodd-Frank law will end
“Too Big To Fail.”

A subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing
Monday at 4 p.m. on the proposed merger between Deutsche Boerse and the
New York Stock Exchange. Larry Leibowitz, the CEO of the NYSE, will
testify as will Gary Katz, president and CEO of the International
Securities Exchange.

The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing Thursday at 10
a.m. on credit union lending to businesses.

The full House is set to consider the Military
Construction-Veterans Affairs spending bill for the 2012 fiscal year as
well as the Agriculture spending bill for FY’12.

The Senate will vote on several judicial nominations this week as
well as ethanol-subsidy amendment to a bill that reauthorizes economic
development programs.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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