On The Money: House, Senate strike deal on partial spending package | House GOP releases ‘tax cuts 2.0’ | Trump hits Obama over ‘magic wand’ remarks

Happy Monday and welcome back to On The Money, where we’re hoping everyone stays safe and dry as Hurricane Florence closes in on the east coast. I’m Sylvan Lane, and here’s your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.

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THE BIG DEAL–House, Senate strike deal on partial funding bill to avert shutdown: Lawmakers on Monday announced a deal to pass the first of three planned spending packages that could help avert or scale back a government shutdown in October.

Appropriators on Capitol Hill submitted a conference report for a “minibus” consisting of three spending bills that lawmakers plan to pass this week, a move that would mark the first time in a decade that Congress has sent the president more than one spending bill ahead of the annual Sept. 30 deadline.

{mosads}The report irons out differences in the House and Senate versions of the three appropriations bills providing $146.57 billion in discretionary spending for measures covering Energy and Water, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and the Legislative branch.

“This Conference Report represents our strong commitment to returning to ‘regular order’ in government funding, and is a huge step toward completing all of our Appropriations bills as soon as possible while funding all aspects of government in a responsible way,” said outgoing House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.).

The Hill’s Niv Elis breaks the bill down here.

LEADING THE DAY

House lawmakers unveil ‘Tax Reform 2.0’ ahead of midterms: House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) on Monday unveiled a package of three bills touted as a sequel to the 2017 GOP tax law.

The bills would make permanent some temporary aspects of the 2017 law, which were passed with expiration dates. Republicans were forced to do that to accommodate budget rules that allowed them to pass the tax law with no Democratic support. The 2.0 bills also include provisions aimed at boosting retirement savings and small business innovation. The Hill’s Niv Elis explains more here.

Why now? The GOP has struggled to keep the political focus on the booming economy ahead of November’s election, where forecasters see a good chance of Democrats taking over the House and possibly even the Senate. 

Some vulnerable Republicans are hoping to run on the tax cut and economy have been frustrated that scandals from the White House continue to drown out largely positive economic news.

The snag: Other vulnerable Republicans from blue-state districts are concerned that the permanent extension of the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax credit could further alienate voters they need to defend their seats.

Trump misquotes Obama while hitting him for 2016 ‘magic wand’ comment about economy: Trump on Monday criticized former President Obama for a 2016 claim that Trump would need a “magic wand” to deliver on his promises to boost U.S. manufacturing employment.

In a Monday tweet, Trump misquoted Obama’s June 2016 criticism of his economic agenda that came shortly after Trump had all but officially clinched the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump quoted Obama as saying “President Trump would need a magic wand to get to 4 percent GDP” at a PBS Newshour town hall event in 2016.

Trump appeared to be referencing remarks Obama made about manufacturing employment, not economic growth, during the 2016 town hall.

During the town hall event, Obama referenced Trump’s promise to woo American companies into manufacturing goods in the U.S. without saying the then-candidate’s name.

“Well, how exactly are you going to do that? What exactly are you going to do? There’s no answer to it,” Obama said, referring to Trump’s campaign rhetoric.

“He just says, ‘Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And, usually, the answer is he doesn’t have an answer.”  

What’s the deal? Trump and Republican officials lashed out at Obama throughout the weekend after the former president blasted his successor and the GOP on Friday in a fiery speech as he hits the campaign trail ahead of the 2018 midterms.

“When you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let’s just remember when this recovery started,” Obama said in remarks at the University of Illinois.

Another mistake: In another Monday morning tweet, Trump also erroneously said that the U.S. unemployment rate, at 3.9 percent as of last week, had sunk below the GDP growth rate, 4.2 percent in the second quarter, for the first time in 100 years.

However, the U.S. growth rate has been higher than the unemployment level more than 20 percent of the time since the Labor Department began reporting employment data 70 years ago, according to Bloomberg.

Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters Monday afternoon that the correct statistic is 10 years and an extra zero must have been wrongly conveyed to Trump in some way.

THE HILL EVENT

Join us Wednesday, September 12 for “A Healthy Start: Infant and Early Childhood Nutrition,” featuring Reps. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and Administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service Brandon Lipps. Editor in Chief Bob Cusack will sit down with the headliners to discuss maternal, infant, and early childhood nutrition, and what steps can be taken to establish healthier eating patterns across all communities. RSVP here.

GOOD TO KNOW

• Utah Senate candidate and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney criticized the GOP on Monday for ballooning the federal deficit after years of party rhetoric about fiscal responsibility.
• New York regulators on Monday approved new digital currencies linked to the dollar proposed by the Paxos Trust company and the Winklevoss twins-founded cryptocurrency firm, the Gemini Trust company.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday renewed his attacks against Amazon, sharing videos on Twitter that accuse the company of using “Orwellian language.”
• U.S. Bank on Monday unveiled a new short-term loan product meant to compete with payday lenders.
• The Chinese government is inviting Wall Street’s top bankers to a meeting in Beijing as Trump threatens to impose punitive tariffs on all Chinese exports to the US, according to the Financial Times.
• The Independent Community Bankers of America on Monday released a chart to track the implementation of S. 2155, the Dodd-Frank rollback bill signed by Trump in May.
• The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose slightly on Monday, snapping a four-day losing streak, as tech shares tried to regain some of the steep losses from last week, according to CNBC.
• China’s foreign ministry on Monday said the country will continue to respond if the United States imposes any further tariffs, Reuters reported.
  

ODDS AND ENDS

• Nearly six in 10 workers say they are still recovering after the Great Recession.
• Op-ed: Philip Levy, a senior fellow on the global economy at The Chicago Council of Global Affairs, argues why the widening trade deficit “puts Trump’s trade fallacies on full display.”