Business

OVERNIGHT MONEY: Yellen heads to the Hill

by Vicki Needham and Peter Schroeder - 02/10/14 6:14 PM ET

TUESDAY’S BIG STORY:

Fed chat: Janet Yellen has been on the job leading the Fed for a little over a week now.

On Tuesday she’ll say “hello” to Congress for the first time in her new capacity. Yellen is due to testify before the House Financial Services Committee.

{mosads}It will be the first time House lawmakers, including a number of Fed skeptics, will get the chance to grill Yellen as she settles into her new digs.

Their Senate counterparts got the chance to probe her on all things Fed at her confirmation hearing last year.

Republicans will have plenty of questions about Yellen’s plan to wrap up the third round of quantitative easing, which the Fed is slowly shrinking month by month. There will also be ample questions about the recent run of disappointing jobs reports, as lawmakers wonder what is behind them and whether they will be enough to throw the Fed’s plans off course.

And of course there will be discussion of financial regulation as well, as Yellen will be asked for her take on all things “too big to fail.”

After she’s done at the House, Yellen will be followed up by a second panel of economists and experts who will “respond” to what she had to say.

Among those included will be John Taylor, the Stanford economist many thought would lead the Fed if Mitt Romney had won the presidency in 2012.

WHAT ELSE WE’RE WATCHING

He’s back: On Tuesday, the Senate Budget Committee will chat about the nation’s fiscal health with Doug Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO updated its long-term outlook earlier this month, and set off quite the flurry of chatter about the effects of ObamaCare on the nation’s economy.

On Monday, the CBO clarified its report last week, saying that it never said 2.5 million people will lose their jobs but that workers would choose to leave the labor force because they have an option for insurance.

Budget process: The House Budget Committee on Tuesday will mark up two bills, including one that would create a two-year plan for budgeting.

Aiming at the IRS: The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up legislation that would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from modifying the standard for determining whether an organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare for purposes of section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

Regulatory reach: A House Judiciary subcommittee will talk with experts about legislation that would nix regulations that burden businesses and hamper growth.

In a letter ahead of the hearing, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions said the legislation is important because it would establish a commission to review federal regulations and identify those that should be repealed or amended to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens.

In addition, the bill would require agencies to offset the cost of new regulations by repealing or amending regulations identified by the commission.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

JOLTS: The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for December evaluates the labor market’s data on job openings, hires and separations.

Wholesale Inventories: The Commerce Department will release its December wholesale trade report that includes sales and inventory statistics from the second stage of the manufacturing process. The sales figures say close to nothing about personal consumption and therefore do not move the market.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

— House GOP leaders push for Wednesday vote to raise debt ceiling

— House GOP looks at longer sequester

— US presses India to change solar panel rules

— Chamber prods GOP on debt ceiling

— Wall Street reformers sue over ‘sweetheart deal’

— Retailers promise ‘robust’ sales tax campaign

— Loper joins Bipartisan Policy Center

— Manufacturers press for passage of fast-track authority

— Pivotal meeting for House GOP

— New job for longtime Wall Street lobbyist

— The defeat of the deficit hawks