This week: Budget debate to take over Congress

{mosads}Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, will serve as the president’s point man this week. He will appear before the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday and the House Budget Committee on Wednesday.

Joining him as a frequent presence before Congress will be Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who is scheduled to testify at no less than four hearings this week.

Geithner will start the week by discussing the tax proposals contained in the budget before the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

He’ll follow that up with a double billing on Thursday before the House and Senate Budget committees, where he will discuss the budget and revenue proposals offered by Obama.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will also appear before the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will testify before the Senate Finance Committee the same day.

A House Financial Services subcommittee will get in on the budget debate on Wednesday by devoting a hearing to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) budget.

The new agency’s budget does not fall under the White House purview, but is instead provided by the Federal Reserve.

House Republicans don’t like that. They argue that congressional appropriators should set the CFPB budget.

House appropriators will be busy this week with several subcommittee hearings.

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will testify on her budget request. On Thursday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will do the same before their respective subcommittees. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will round out the budget chat before appropriators Friday.

After a series of contentious public meetings, the 20 conferees tapped with crafting a yearlong extension of the payroll-tax break will likely take their work behind closed doors this week. No public hearings are on tap.

Capitol Hill watchers see this week as a critical period in the talks, given that Congress is out of session the following week, and the existing breaks are set to expire at the end of the month.