Damon Scott Bubbles

OVERNIGHT MONEY: Casing Case-Shiller

Days until Aug. 2 debt-ceiling deadline: 36 .

TUESDAY’S BIG STORY:

Who's ready for another round of housing data? Anyone?

Lucky you: The latest version of the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index is due out tomorrow morning, with many hoping it won't be a repeat performance of its last offering.

At the end of May, the index reported that home prices in the first quarter of 2011 dropped by 4.2 percent, erasing all gains in home prices made since the housing bubble burst and leading the creators of the index to declare a double dip in home prices was under way.

Still, there may be hope for tomorrow's report, which will shine a light on home prices over the three-month period ending in April. Several home price indexes have already shown gains in April — the Federal Housing Finance Agency's monthly index showed a 0.8 percent gain — so some think the highly visible S&P/Case-Shiller index might also beat bleak expectations. 

That, to be sure, would be some sorely needed positive information about the housing market and economy as a whole.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR:

About those 36 days : As it happens, Day One of President Obama’s intervention in debt ceiling talks have come and gone without an agreement. The president’s Monday daybook included meetings with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has demanded that Obama take both tax hikes and stimulus spending off the table , and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

The White House, though, is sticking by its declaration that any deal will have to include revenue raisers. Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Monday that the administration was interested in discussing tax credits and deductions for the oil-and-gas industry, corporate jet owners and depreciation provisions for manufacturers. 

Sources also have told The Hill that the White House is pushing for a proposal, included in the president’s 2012 budget, that would force hedge fund managers and other investors to pay income tax rates, instead of the lower capital gains rates. 

And, as The Hill’s Alexander Bolton and Sam Youngman report, this all amounts to talks over the Bush tax cuts for high earners being put off for another day. 

Presidential daybook : Obama is headed to Iowa on Tuesday to reiterate a recent White House push: the importance of manufacturing for the U.S. economy.

Harlem Renaissance lives from the African American national biography

Book review index

Billboard

The Virgin encyclopedia of stage and film musicals

This generation, a selection of British and American literature from 1914 to the present