Congress may make some small progress on Obama jobs bill

The House picks up this week where the Senate left off, considering the one element of President Obama’s jobs proposal that is generating sweeping bipartisan appeal -- the repeal of a 3% tax on companies contracting with the government.

Not quite a campaign slogan, to be sure.

But the 3% withholding rule, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2013, is the one provision from Obama’s $447-billion jobs package that Republicans have embraced alongside Democrats. The Senate came just three votes shy of advancing it last week.

The House is expected to vote midweek on the measure, which would permanently repeal the tax that was slipped into a 2005 tax bill during the President George W. Bush administration but has been postponed ever since. Obama proposed postponing it until Jan. 1, 2014.

The House is also expected to consider copper mining legislation as the GOP struggles to pivot to the jobs issue. Republicans are touting the measure as part of their jobs-creation agenda.

The Senate is in recess this week, but on Monday and Thursday, watch for those lightning-quick pro forma sessions, which have become the new normal as Republicans seek to prevent the administration from making recess appointments.

Also this week, the super committee on deficit reduction comes out from under his cone of silence. The committee meets Wednesday for its first open hearing in weeks, as it narrows its options for slicing $1.5 trillion from federal deficits by the looming November deadline.

The committee will hear from Doug Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, who will be making a return visit before the panel to talk about discretionary budget cuts. The committee has been criticized for meeting mostly behind closed doors, and complaints have surfaced that it is not making progress -- a criticism those close to the committee dispute.

Perhaps the key area of bipartisan accord this week will come on a less political playing field. Later in the week, the House is expected to consider the National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act, proposed by Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.).

This crowd pleaser comes just in time for the final games of the World Series. It would require the Treasury Department to mint $5 gold coins, $1 silver coins and clad half-dollars as a fundraiser for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The coins would sell for $35, $10 and $5 apiece, respectively -- discounts for bulk sales -- with the proceeds going to the museum.

Apparently, Congress no longer feels susceptible to the criticism that Washington is just printing money – the proposal has broad bipartisan support.

lmascaro@tribune.com