Week ahead: Back to budget, Ex-Im bank

Lawmakers return to Capitol Hill on Monday after a two-week recess with unfinished budget business.

Republicans hope to reach a compromise on the budget blueprints passed by the House and Senate last month.

House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) met over the recess to discuss the differences between the bills.

{mosads}Lawmakers likely won’t meet the legal deadline to pass a budget on Wednesday, but they will appoint members to a budget conference committee to begin work. They’ll need to finish the budget work before turning their attention to spending bills.

The fight over the Export-Import Bank will also resume as House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) holds a Wednesday hearing on reauthorization.

Ex-Im Chairman Fred Hochberg will testify at the hearing, as will Mike McCarthy, the bank’s acting inspector general. 

The two will likely face a grilling. Hensarling is a staunch critic of the bank’s reauthorization, siding with Tea Partyers who call the bank’s activities “cronyism” and “corporate welfare.”

The hearing comes amidst intense speculation on whether Hensarling will move a bill through his panel that reauthorizes the bank, which will shutdown on June 30 unless Congress acts.

Centrist Republicans and Democrats, backed by the business community, say it helps finance U.S. projects that lead to job creation.

In the House, Republicans could also force a vote to repeal the estate tax.

Across the Capitol, the Senate Banking Committee will have a hearing dubbed “The Regulatory Burdens to Obtaining a Mortgage Credit” on Thursday. The panel will hear testimony from officials representing the National Association of Home Builders, the National Association of Realtors, and the Mortgage Bankers Association. 

Wall Street also has a big week, with a handful of large financial institutions poised to release first-quarter earnings. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase all will release earnings reports during the week.

On Monday, Vice President Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will each speak at a progressive forum in Washington organized by unions dubbed the “Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference.”

They will speak a day after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to announce she is running for president. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will also likely announce he’s running for president, joining Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in making  a formal announcement.

Also off Capitol Hill, the International Monetary Fund  will release a report on Tuesday on the state of the global economy. 

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve releases its all-important Beige Book, a survey of economists at the regional banks. 

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