This week: House, Senate plant seeds for farm bill deal

{mosads}The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will release its score of President Obama’s budget on Friday after releasing an updated 10-year deficit projection on Tuesday. The new score will apply CBO’s economic assumptions and methods to the Obama 2014 budget, which arrived on Capitol Hill with a thud in April.

On Thursday, the House Financial Services Committee will hold an oversight hearing of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mary Jo White, who has headed the agency for roughly a month, will testify.

A subcommittee that same day will explore housing finance reform as it pertains to multifamily residences and healthcare facilities. And on Wednesday, another subcommittee will explore what Dodd-Frank does to the issue of “too big to fail” — end it or enshrine it?

A Senate committee on Thursday will take another shot at trying to approve the nomination of Tom Perez to lead the Labor Department. Perez, who is head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is facing serious resistance from Senate Republicans, who invoked a rarely used rule this week to postpone another vote.

On Monday, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will vet the nomination of Brian Deese, tapped by the president to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Deese’s nomination comes as the OMB is grappling with several vacancies at high-ranking positions, even as Sylvia Matthews Burwell was confirmed to lead the office in April. 

The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday will look at the question of tax reform and how it might impact Medicare payments to physicians.

On Wednesday, a House Ways and Means subcommittee will meet to discuss the small business and pass-through entity tax reform discussion draft released on March 12. The focus is on how to simplify the tax code so that a majority of small businesses don’t need to spend precious capital on tax preparers.

On Thursday, another tax-writing subcommittee will gather to talk the U.S.-EU trade negotiations.

European and U.S. leaders say they are committed to crafting a comprehensive agreement that would lower tariffs and harmonize a wide array of regulations, which would be designed to set an example for subsequent deals.

The Senate Banking Committee on Thursday will explore the future of the private student loan market, how it could effect the broader economy and how to reform or monitor it.

Subcommittees will debate how to entice private capital back into the mortgage market Tuesday, followed by a Wednesday debate on improving financial regulations that span international lines.

President Obama meets with United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday at the White House to discuss a broad array of national security and economic issues, including the trade deal.

With talks set to start within the next couple of months, the leaders are expected to confirm their desires to reach an agreement within a couple of years.

Expect Syria to be a hot topic, too. Cameron met on Friday with Russian President Vladmir Putin to discuss how to stop the bloodshed in that nation.

The visit comes ahead of Obama’s trip to Europe next month for the Group of Eight summit, which Cameron will lead in Northern Ireland.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday will discuss U.S. private sector involvement in Turkey with that country’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The meeting will mark the launch of the Chamber’s U.S.-Turkey Business Council (USTBC), a trade and investment advocacy organization representing top U.S. firms doing business with Turkey.

On Wednesday, the Bretton Woods Committee will bring together top private sector, government and multilateral officials to discuss the changing global development environment and what the groups can do collectively to end extreme poverty. Headlining the event are Lael Brainard, under secretary for International Affairs at the Treasury Department; Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank; Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund; and Sen. Robert Menendez, (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.