Business

OVERNIGHT MONEY: Unemployment numbers roll out for October

by Vicki Needham and Bernie Becker - 11/03/11 10:23 PM ET

The economy needs to churn out jobs at a faster rate and that will probably only happen if people spend more. See where this is going?

Consumers tripled their spending over the summer but dipped into their savings — who needs a vacation? — to do it.

{mosads}Shopping could already be pulling back, with October spending slower than expected as bad news continued to pelt consumers’ hopes.

The prospects of Thanksgiving and Christmas spending just around the corner could be an anchor to those who want to spend more now.

Meanwhile, lawmakers and the White House haven’t been able to reach an agreement on portions of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR

Let’s look at jobs: The Joint Economic Committee will discuss the unemployment numbers set for release in the morning with Keith Hall, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, testifying.

Boehner doesn’t get all the fun: Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and a slew of House GOP freshmen are having a news conference of their own on Friday, also to discuss job creation.

Well, that was taxing: A House Oversight subcommittee is set to look into the problem of tax fraud and identity theft, with the Treasury inspector general for tax administration and officials from the Justice Department and the IRS expected to testify.

The tax administration inspector general has found a stark rise in tax fraud via identity theft, with almost five times as many identified cases in 2010 than in 2008. One leading defrauder, a Bronx tax return preparer, was sentenced to six years in jail this year for masterminding a scheme that led to more than $28 million in false refunds.

PRESIDENTIAL DAYBOOK

Cannes we do it?: It’s gonna be tricky with Greece upsetting the last remnants, if there were any, of balance in the Group of 20 talks along the French Riviera.

President Obama, who wraps up work with other world leaders on Friday, has focused on lending a global hand to the Eurozone, which is facing a financial crisis.

Obama pressed European leaders to move fast to iron out a financial rescue plan. Greece, especially, could wind up insolvent without a bailout, which would send shockwaves through U.S. and world markets.

Greece threw a wrench into the already squeaky works on Monday when Prime Minister George Papandreou said he would put the latest rescue plan — which was negotiated for months — to a referendum vote, a move that would likely lead to default.

Other European leaders, well, freaked out over the idea that all of their hard work would be for naught. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel summoned Papandreou to a meeting on Wednesday night as Obama left U.S. soil for the summit.

Papandreou nixed the plan on Thursday night, leaving some hope that there is a way to help the struggling nation.

Obama and other European leaders also are trying to drum up interest from other nations like China and Russia to lend some financial help to the financially strapped Eurozone, a suggestion that didn’t fly too well with those countries’ leaders.

We’ll see what leaders have to say on Friday about the movement of negotiations.

BREAKING THURSDAY

Minibus gets a bit bigger: Congressional appropriators are moving aggressively to wrap up the 2012 spending bills and will add spending bills for Homeland Security and the legislative branch to the so-called minibus, which landed in a place rarely visited by lawmakers anymore — a House-Senate conference committee.

The last conference held for any reason was for Dodd-Frank last year.

The minibus containing funding for Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Justice passed the Senate on Tuesday. The Thursday conference committee meeting is the first time Congress has followed regular negotiation procedures on a spending bill since 2009, reports The Hill’s Erik Wasson.

LOOSE CHANGE

Been served: Roughly 70 percent of the Senate GOP conference — 33 lawmakers in all — have sent the 12 supercommittee members a list of requests: Balance the budget in a decade, reform entitlements, avoid further credit downgrades and reform the tax code — without a net tax increase.

{mossecondads}The letter comes as supercommittee watchers have been observing the panel for clues on how it deals with revenue, and as Democrats continue to press for taxes to play a larger role in deficit-reduction.

One Democratic aide responded to the Republican letter by citing a certain antitax activist that Dems have been frequently bringing up in recent days.

“Grover Norquist didn’t sign the letter, because he wrote it,” the aide said.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

— Senate Dems looking to rework 3 percent repeal

— Senate Democrats urge banks to simplify checking account fee disclosures

— Freddie Mac taps Treasury for $6 billion as losses mount

— Financial crimes unit wants direct reports from Fannie, Freddie on mortgage fraud

— And spending by Fannie, Freddie comes under scrutiny

— House could finish 2012 spending by Christmas, say committee leaders

— Portman says supercommittee not deadlocked, a ‘lot of ideas’ still in play

— And Lew suggests not writing off the supercommittee just yet

— House Dems want supercommittee to take up unemployment extension

— Liberals call for corporate ‘Buffett Rule’