OVERNIGHT MONEY: Big Apple or bust

TUESDAY’S BIG STORY:

A day after he broke the news that the debt ceiling had, officially, been hit, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is likely to take on the issue again on Tuesday.

Geithner, a former president of the New York Fed, heads back to the Big Apple to address the Harvard Club on the country’s fiscal challenges. 

In a move that was far from a surprise, Treasury announced Monday that Geithner was going full speed ahead with more “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default on American obligations. The department also reiterated that Congress had until early August to act on the debt limit. 

And while Monday’s events could move the debt-ceiling debate into the next stage, much of the Washington rhetoric remained the same.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), for instance, reiterated that any debt-limit deal would need to contain more spending cuts than the amount the ceiling is raised. For his part, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) continued to press the case for his measure, which he says would avoid default by prioritizing debt payments. 

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR:

Pinch-Hitting: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund chief who has been denied bail in New York after being arrested for on sexual assault charges, was scheduled to speak at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on Thursday. That slot will now go to John Lipsky, the acting managing director for the IMF. 

Eyes on Iran: Top lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the panel’s chairwoman, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), its ranking member — have jointly sponsored new Iran sanctions legislation to help combat that country’s quest for nuclear weapons.

Berman said the legislation expands sanctions to include foreign businesses involved in energy transactions with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. American sanctions against non-U.S. companies doing business with Iran, though only rarely applied, have proven to be a sore point over the years. 

The bill would eliminate waivers, favored by the Obama administration, that would allow the executive branch to exempt foreign firms from sanctions if violations are found. But it remains to be seen if the new legislation will raise the ire of business groups.

Up on the Hill: The rabble-rousing House may be out of Washington for the week, but the staid Senate remains. Among the Tuesday hearings to watch out for: Finance tackles infrastructure with, among others, the always colorful Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor. Banking, meanwhile, gets into the Export-Import Bank.

A trio of Democratic lawmakers — Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia — is also scheduled to hold a Tuesday news conference to discuss new arbitration legislation.

Economic indicators:

— The Federal Reserve is set to release figures on industrial production and capacity utilization.

— The Commerce Department is slated to circulate housing starts and building permits. 

BREAKING MONDAY:

All sorts of trade talk…: U.S. trade officials might have angered organized labor recently by moving forward with trade agreements, but unions are probably more excited by recent administration actions.

As The Hill’s Kevin Bogardus reported, the U.S. Trade Representative announced Monday that it would not move pending pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea until there is a deal on the lapsed Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which for years has provided benefits to manufacturing workers that can show they have been displaced by free trade. 

TAA was temporarily expanded in the 2009 stimulus package to include service workers, but that expansion expired in February amid partisan finger-pointing. There is also some dispute over whether states should be forced to hire unionized workers to administer TAA, something Republicans oppose. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he was disappointed by the link to TAA and reiterated that he wants Obama to seek new fast-track trade agreement negotiating authority, something that is unlikely, given union opposition. 

“It is my hope that the President will reconsider this decision and will not allow anything to get in the way of congressional consideration of these trade agreements and the jobs they’ll create, and that he’ll also work with us on the extension of Trade Promotion Authority so that we can continue to expand opportunities for American entrepreneurs and our farmers and ranchers,” he said. 

Still on that front…: Ron Kirk, the trade representative, also on Monday requested a meeting of a commission created by the Central American Free Trade Agreement over Guatemalan labor laws. 

The case marks the first time the U.S. has gone after a country for its labor laws in this way. The U.S. first sought talks with Guatemala last summer, based on a complaint brought by the AFL-CIO. The Bush administration had repeatedly denied AFL-CIO labor-rights petitions under CAFTA.

The move can be seen as trying to repair relations with unions and could lead to trade retaliation against Guatemala.

Still, far from all is in the government-labor relationship. As they discussed in a Monday release, the Teamsters are formally opposing a Mexican trucks pilot program, which implements a long-ignored NAFTA provision. Mexico has slapped tariffs on U.S. goods to force the opening up of U.S. roads to Mexican trucking companies.

Tax reform!: A new Ernst & Young report found that companies would generally fare better in the tax reform proposal from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.) than the one from President Obama’s fiscal commission. Wyden-Gregg reduces the top corporate tax rate a bit more than the debt panel (24 percent to 28 percent), while both eliminate a host of tax credits and deductions. 

(For the record, Bowles-Simpson does get its top individual rate lower than Wyden-Gregg.)

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:

— Paul Ryan: Critics of my budget are playing class warfare.

— The 2011 budget deal? It increases spending this year. 

— The Justice Department puts the kibosh on any NASDAQ/NYSE deal.

— GOP report: A weak dollar means more pain at the pump.

— White House: The IMF will pull through.

— The DCCC goes on the offense over Medicare.

— Top senators are worried about a Washington Post HUD investigation. 

— Tax group: Healthcare repeal should be in debt-ceiling deal. 

— OMB defends an embattled nominee. 

— Corporate financial officers think bigger companies have more ability to get their tax rate down.

— Economic concerns are reach two-year high.

— And builder confidence: Still bleak.