OVERNIGHT MONEY: President Obama continues three-day road trip

In Asheville, he challenged Congress to pass his $447 billion jobs bill in “bite-sized pieces,” stating with legislation to provide funding to cash-starved states to pay for teachers, police officers and firefighters, The Hill’s Sam Youngman reports. 

VEEP on the road: Vice President Biden also is on the road touting funding for first-responders in Philadelphia. He will sit down with National Drug Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Philadelphia Police Department Commissioner Charles Ramsey, police chiefs from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and public-safety officials from local universities and transportation departments to discuss how budget cuts effect them. 

{mosads}The president’s bill provides $5 billion to support the hiring and retention of public-safety personnel.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR

Central bank chat: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is back in the spotlight on Tuesday. He’ll make a speech in Boston on how the financial crisis and resultant recession have affected the thinking and operation of central banks.

The timing couldn’t be better. The speech comes weeks after the Fed announced that it would be making another unorthodox attempt to boost the economy via monetary policy. “Operation Twist” has the Fed buying up $400 billion of long-term bonds while selling off the same amount in short-term debt, a bid to lower borrowing costs while keeping the size of the Fed’s balance sheet stable. The atypical move was expected by financial markets but earned the thumbs-down from GOP lawmakers, who specifically asked Bernanke to avoid dipping further into the Fed’s playbook to help the economy.

Gimme some spotlight, too: Bernanke would probably hate to go it alone in grabbing most of Tuesday’s headlines, so Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will head back up to Capitol Hill tomorrow to testify before the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. The topic of the day — how small businesses are faring a year since a jobs bill was passed to help them through the economic downturn. Given the continued economic doldrums, we’re guessing Republicans won’t be giving it a ringing endorsement.

Tax Reform Part Umpteenth: Senate Finance holds another of its regularly scheduled meetings to have a closer look at the tax code on Tuesday, this time with an emphasis on charitable giving.

The philanthropy sector has been on its heels pretty much throughout the Obama administration, as the White House has tried tried to limit the deductions wealthy taxpayers can claim for giving to charity. (The administration most recently made that suggestion in its September deficit-reduction recommendations.)

Charity executives have long said that the proposal would eat into donations — and that pushing that idea during a sluggish economy is especially misguided. On Tuesday, Senate Finance will host the chief executive for United Way Worldwide and a higher-up in the Mormon church, from ranking member Orrin Hatch’s (R) home state of Utah, to discuss the issue.

Differing perspectives: The National Priorities Project and Citizens for Tax Justice, a pair of left-leaning groups, have unveiled a website detailing how much the Bush tax cuts have kept out of the Treasury since 2001. The verdict, as of press time: around $1.035 trillion.

On the other side of the spectrum, the conservative-tilting Tax Foundation held a briefing Monday to try to rebut the argument that companies often pay far less than the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

Including taxes paid to foreign governments, the group said, corporations pay roughly 33 percent — not too much lower than that statutory rate.

Ring the bell: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano rings the opening bell for the NASDAQ stock exchange. 

Trade update: U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk will meet with Panamanian Minister of Trade and Commerce Ricardo Quijano in Washington, less than a week after Congress cleared the free-trade agreement with the nation.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

• NAHB Housing Market Index: The National Association of Homebuilders releases its gauge of builder perceptions of single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months.

• Producer Price Index: The Labor Department will release its report that tracks the finished goods index most closely because it represents prices for goods that are ready for sale to consumers. 

BREAKING MONDAY

Voting for jobs: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will try to get a vote on a piece of the president’s jobs bill by the end of this week, but he acknowledged Monday that he might have to keep the Senate in session into the beginning of Friday’s week-long recess in order to do so, The Hill’s Erik Wasson reports. 

{mossecondads}If Reid fails, the next chance to vote on the Obama agenda would come after Halloween, leaving the White House disappointed.

The $35 billion jobs bill will be used to prevent teacher and first-responder layoffs, creating or saving 400,000 jobs. It will be paid for by a 0.5 percent surtax on those making more than $1 million per year. The bill is sponsored by Reid and Sens. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

• White House sees trade agenda hurt by spending bill

• IRS chief: Customers hurt if agency’s budget cut

• DOT announces transit grants

• Fed requires ‘living wills’ for big banks

• Factory production rises in September

• Study: Earned Income Tax Credit widely claimed

• House Democrats take aim at oil and gas subsidies

• Bernie Sanders calls for bank boycott

• Sen. Boxer proposes bill to let president raise national debt ceiling

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