OVERNIGHT FINANCE: Senate opens trade debate

TOMORROW STARTS TONIGHT: SENATE MOVES AHEAD WITH TRADE, via Alexander Bolton and Jordain Carney: “The Senate voted Thursday to advance a motion to begin debate on the core of President Obama’s trade agenda, putting it back on track after a week of deadlock. In a 65-33 vote, the Senate agreed to proceed to a package that would empower Obama to negotiate future trade deals with minimal interference from Congress and assist U.S. workers displaced by foreign competition.” http://bit.ly/1QNufU8

THIS IS OVERNIGHT FINANCE, tomorrow is Friday. What a week. Tweet: @kevcirilli; email: kcirilli@digital-release.thehill.com; and subscribe: http://digital-release.thehill.com/signup/48 I need a drink…

SHOT, via House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) responding a question about whether cuts in Amtrak funding are responsible to the Philly crash: “Are you really going to ask such a stupid question? [Democrats] started this yesterday and it’s all about funding. It’s all about funding. Well, obviously it’s not about funding. The train was going twice the speed limit. Adequate funds were there. No money has been cut from rail safety… It’s hard for me that people take the bait on some of the nonsense that gets spewed around here.”

CHASER, via Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.): “Speaker Boehner’s comments are patently false. Experts have made clear that Positive Train Control could have prevented the tragedy in Philadelphia. It is simply a fact that insufficient funding for Amtrak has delayed the installation of PTC, and to deny a connection between the accident and underfunding Amtrak is to deny reality.”  Rebecca Shabad reports, you decide: http://bit.ly/1HjJAuj

QUOTABLE, via likely GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush: “If we are all supposed to answer hypothetical questions, ‘Knowing what we know now, what would you have done?’ ” Bush said, according to video from Fox 10 Phoenix reporter Steve Kraft at an event in Arizona, “I would have not engaged, I would not have gone into Iraq. That’s not to say the world [isn’t] safer because Saddam Hussein is gone — it is significantly safer.”

— Ben Kamisar has the story: http://bit.ly/1GazlqC Niall Stanage has the analysis: http://bit.ly/1Fh64tm Seth Meyers brings the funny: http://bit.ly/1GazAC7 Christie has the trolling on CNN: “I want to directly answer your question because that’s what I do…” http://cnn.it/1HcdX2J

VA MISMANAGED $6B, via Shabad: “The Department of Veterans Affairs has been improperly spending at least $6 billion a year, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. Jan Frye, the VA’s deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and logistics, wrote a 35-page memo to Secretary Robert McDonald in March about the spending.” http://bit.ly/1Fb8QPy

FED WATCH: SURVEY SAYS RATE HIKE IN SEPTEMBER: WSJ’s Ben Leubsdorf: “The Federal Reserve will wait until September to begin raising short-term interest rates, according to a growing majority of private economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. About 73% of economists in the survey, which was conducted Friday through Tuesday, said the U.S. central bank will start lifting rates in September. That’s up from 65% in the April survey and 38% in March’s poll.” http://on.wsj.com/1RL8Oob

Meanwhile…

FACING REALITY: GDP LOOKS LIKE IT WILL FALL SHORT… AGAIN. Paul Vigna in WSJ: “It’s time to start rethinking your GDP calls. Yes, it’s only May 14. The year is not quite half over. But after Wednesday’s reports on retail sales and inventories, it’s starting to look like there isn’t going to be a rebound in the second quarter from the awful first quarter. What’s more, first-quarter gross-domestic product figures look very likely be revised into a contraction, meaning GDP for the full year is almost certainly, once again, going in come in below initial forecasts.” http://on.wsj.com/1A4lPn9

Back to trade… 

DAYS UNTIL EX-IM SHUTS DOWN: 45. 

OBAMA V. WARREN: WHITE HOUSE ATTACK BACKFIRES? She lost on policy — but did White House lose PR fight? Mike Lillis and Jordan Fabian: “President Obama’s sharp rebuke of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) over his ambitious trade agenda is backfiring in the House, where the personal attacks are alienating the same Democrats the president is courting for votes… The tensions underlying the trade debate have highlighted a long-standing problem for the president: namely, his penchant for negotiating legislation in ways that leave even his closest allies on Capitol Hill feeling excluded from the process… Perhaps recognizing the growing disdain, the White House on Wednesday shifted its tone toward Warren, emphasizing the long list of issues on which she and the president agree.” http://bit.ly/1PIrCAC

CANADA BACKS WARREN ON TRADE, via Zach Carter for HuffPo: “President Barack Obama and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have been locked in a public feud over whether free trade agreements can be used to undermine the 2010 Wall Street reform law. On Wednesday, the Canadian government sided with Warren.

“Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver gave a speech in New York arguing that the Volcker Rule — a key tenet of the 2010 banking law — violates the North American Free Trade Agreement. The move underscores Warren’s warning that such deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Obama is currently negotiating, jeopardize financial reform.” http://huff.to/1bT1Jkr

HIGHER ED BIG BIZ: IT PAYS TO MANAGE HARVARD. Michael McDonald and John Lauerman for Bloomberg: “Harvard University, the world’s wealthiest school, paid its top six endowment managers a combined $49.3 million in 2013, a 50 percent increase from the year before… Harvard’s investment returns have lagged peers such as Yale University, and some alumni have criticized endowment managers’ pay as excessive. Last year, the $36.4 billion endowment posted a 15.4 percent investment return, the second worst in the Ivy League.” http://bloom.bg/1HgqLoS

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