OVERNIGHT MONEY: President Obama pitches jobs out West

Leavin’ Las Vegas: The president began his western tour on Monday, talking up his plan to help homeowners who owe more than their houses are worth. Nevada — aka, center stage of the country’s foreclosure crisis — is a swing state, to boot. The state has the dubious distinction of ranking No. 1 in foreclosures, followed closely by California. 

Republicans, of course, have derided the “We Can’t Wait” idea, essentially saying that Americans have been waiting nearly three years for the White House’s policies to work.

{mosads}Obama is also not the only member of his administration on the move tomorrow: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is scheduled to visit Wilmington, N.C., to see the Corning fiber optic manufacturing facility.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR

China, a closer look: The House Ways and Means Committee will examine the opportunities and challenges in the American economic relationship with China on Tuesday, two weeks after the Senate passed a measure taking aim at Beijing’s currency practices. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the Ways and Means chairman, has backed China currency measures in the past, but is also prodding lawmakers to take a broader look at the relationship between the two countries. 

Problems across the pond: Europe’s debt crisis continues to grab headlines and eyeballs along Wall Street, as lawmakers continue worrying about what this foreign crisis might mean for the shaky economy here. Tomorrow morning, the House Financial Services will hold a subcommittee hearing devoted to those implications, hearing from officials from the Treasury Department and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others.

Insurance inquiry: The House Financial Services Committee will keep up its busy schedule tomorrow, with an afternoon subcommittee hearing on the slate. After lunch, lawmakers will be discussing the insurance industry and the government’s efforts to regulate it.

Following the financial crisis and the meltdown of AIG, insurance companies have gotten a closer look from the government as they try to prevent another ride on that awful merry-go-round. Michael McRaith, the former state insurance regulator tapped to head up the Treasury’s brand new Federal Insurance Office, will be on hand to testify.

Gimme 3 percent, mister: The movement to roll back the 3 percent government withholding provision is expected to keep on marching in the House tomorrow, as the Rules Committee meets on the repeal measure and the House GOP’s preferred offset, a bill that essentially makes it tougher for people to obtain Medicaid.

The repeal of the withholding rule, which mandates that most government entities keep 3 percent of their payments to contractors, has broad support in both parties. But Senate Democrats and House Republicans also have very different visions, at least for now, over how to pay for repeal.

President Obama’s jobs plan also deals with the issue — it delays implementation for a year, to 2014, instead of outright repeal. The House GOP on Monday charged the president with trying to stonewall one of his own proposals.

Meeting for a living: The deficit-reduction panel will meet at noon in the Capitol. The meeting comes a day ahead of the group’s first public meeting since September, which will be focused on discretionary spending. Across town, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) and former congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin will deliver their recommendations to the supercommittee.

Elsewhere, the Aerospace Industries Association holds a press conference to decry Defense cuts that would be triggered if the congressional supercommittee were to fail its deficit-cutting mandate.

To Russia with, well, like: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) delivers a major economic policy address on U.S.-Russia relations at the Hertiage Foundation. Boehner appears ready to call for the U.S. to take a stronger stance with Russia on human-rights issue in his speech titled “Reasserting American Exceptionalism in the U.S.-Russia Relationship.”

The U.S. and Russia are reaching an endgame in 18 years of talks over Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Boehner’s speech could provide clues on whether the House GOP plans to use any vote on Russia’s WTO membership to pressure Russia on rights. That vote could come early next year if Russia, the U.S. and Georgia all resolve differences in time for the December meeting of WTO members. Once the WTO admits Russia, Congress would have to grant permanent normal trading relations to Russia or risk retaliation from the new member.

HEARING ROUNDUP

Dust up: The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on possible Obama administration “farm dust” regulations. The administration said earlier this month that it has no plans to issue such a regulation, but the rescheduled hearing — part of the House GOP anti-regulation agenda — goes on as planned.

LOOSE CHANGE

Regulatory showdown: Jan Eberly, newly installed as the assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy, took to her department’s blog on Monday to try and shoot down a GOP rallying cry: That excessive regulations are choking off economic growth.

Eberly wrote that, if regulations really were holding businesses back from hiring, that trend should be noticeable in areas like business profits and in comparisons between the U.S. and other countries.

“As discussed in a detailed review of the evidence below, none of these data support the claim that regulatory uncertainty is holding back hiring,” Eberly wrote. 

Republicans, meanwhile, fired back in the afternoon, calling attention to a new Gallup poll that found that more than one in five small-business owners said regulatory compliance was their biggest headache. (The No. 2 answer: consumer confidence.)

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

• S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city Index: Home prices could have ticked up in September in the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas, a housing price index report could say on Tuesday. 

• Consumer confidence: The Conference Board’s monthly report could show that confidence improved in September. The report can be helpful in predicting shifts in consumer spending.

• FHFA Housing Price Index: The Federal Housing Finance Agency will release its measure of prices for August on single-family homes. 

BREAKING MONDAY

No vacancy: Housing hogged the spotlight on Monday as the the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced a plan to eliminate barriers to spur refinancing of underwater mortgages as part of the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP).

Obama administration officials said they worked for months on the changes — getting all the stakeholders to agree on ways to broaden eligibility for HARP, The Hill’s Peter Schroeder and Vicki Needham report. 

While most housing industry advocates were on board with the changes, they and some House Democrats pressed for an overhaul that would broaden the number of homeowners eligible. 

“It’s far too little, it’s just baby steps,” Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), a longtime critic of the administration’s housing policies, said in a phone interview. “They’re still not getting it.”

Cardoza, who announced last week he’ll retire at the end of 2012, noted that the housing collapse was a leading cause of the recession but among the last to be addressed, The Hill’s Mike Lillis reports. 

Although there are differences in policy opinion, Republicans, Democrats, the Federal Reserve and most housing groups off the Hill agree — housing is job one for the economy to recover. 

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

— Consumer groups: Obama more generous to Big Pharma in trade talks.

— IRS on track to enforce taxes and penalties from healthcare law.

— The agency also is taking suggestions from the public.

Tips and feedback to vneedham@digital-staging.thehill.com.