Happy Monday and welcome back to On The Money. I’m Sylvan Lane, and here’s your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.
See something I missed? Let me know at slane@digital-release.thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N.
Write us with tips, suggestions and news: slane@digital-release.thehill.com, vneedham@digital-release.thehill.com, njagoda@digital-release.thehill.com and nelis@digital-release.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @SylvanLane, @VickofTheHill, @NJagoda and @NivElis.
THE BIG DEAL– Congress pivots to preventing second shutdown: With the federal government kicking back into gear after a 35-day partial shutdown, Congress is turning to its next deadline: Preventing another funding lapse.
The continuing resolution (CR) signed by President Trump funds roughly a quarter of the government through Feb. 15, giving Congress 19 days to reach a deal in the months-long fight over the president’s desired wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
{mosads}A bipartisan conference committee, which includes appropriations committee members from both chambers, is slated to get to work on hashing out a plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Hill’s Jordain Carney and Juliegrace Brufke explain here.
The details:
- Lawmakers are hoping the conference committee will be able to come up with a deal to fund roughly a quarter of the government through the end of the 2019 fiscal year, taking a shutdown off the table until October.
- While Trump signed the three-week stopgap to end the shutdown, he warned Congress that the government could close again without a deal that includes ample funding for the wall.
- “Keep in mind he’s willing to do whatever it takes to secure the border. He does take this very seriously. This is a serious humanitarian and security crisis,” said Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday.
What comes next:
- The commission will meet at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, according to a notice from the House Appropriations Committee.
- Senators have floated taking up legislation that would prevent future shutdowns by automatically creating a continuing resolution (CR), though there are competing proposals on the idea.
- Trump said he also hasn’t ruled out the possibility of circumventing Congress by using a mechanism such as declaring a national emergency in order to build the wall.
LEADING THE DAY
White House announces new round of trade talks with China: The White House on Monday announced a new round of trade negotiations with China as the Trump administration seeks an elusive deal with Beijing.
- Top officials from the U.S. and China will “discuss the trade relationship between the two countries” on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, according to the White House.
- U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will lead the president’s team and will be accompanied by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.
The announcement came during the tail end of an anxious day on Wall Street, as lackluster earnings reports and warnings about China’s troubled economy from major corporate bellwethers sent stocks falling.
More China news… US files criminal charges against Huawei: Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges on Monday against Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, a move that is likely to inflame tensions between the U.S. and China.
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said two separate grand juries in Seattle and New York have returned indictments against Huawei affiliates, subsidiaries and executives.
The indictments allege that the company stole intellectual property from T-Mobile and also violated U.S. sanction orders, Whitaker said.
Administration officials also said they are in the process of formally requesting the extradition of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, late last year at the request of American authorities. The request will be filed by Tuesday.
The charges mark an escalation in an already tense trade battle with Beijing. The Hill’s Jacqueline Thomsen and Olivia Beavers have more on the charges and what it means for U.S.-China relations.
US imposes sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company: The Trump administration on Monday announced new sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, ramping up pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to give up power.
National security adviser John Bolton told reporters at the White House that the sanctions on Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) will target $7 billion in assets and could result in $11 billion in lost sales over the next year.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described the state-owned company as a vehicle for “embezzlement and corruption,” and argued the sanctions would further pressure Maduro to cede power. The Hill’s Jordan Fabian and Brett Samuels break it down here.
- Mnuchin said he does not expect Americans to see an impact on gas prices, and that U.S. refineries will see only “modest impacts” from the sanctions.
- The move comes less than a week after Trump recognized Juan Guaidó, the leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly, as the country’s interim president.
New forecasts cast doubt on Trump’s economic goals: President Trump faces an uphill climb to deliver on his promise of sustained 3 percent growth, according to new data in a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
While the $1.5 trillion tax cut in his signature 2017 tax law boosted growth last year to about 3.1 percent, surpassing the 3 percent mark for the first time since 2005, CBO projects moderate economic expansion heading into Trump’s reelection campaign.
For 2019, CBO projected growth slow to 2.3 percent, and then 1.7 percent in 2020. The Hill’s Niv Elis tells us what it means here.
The CBO’s report on Monday also found that other Trump policies were affecting the economy.
- The five-week partial government shutdown that ended Friday cost the economy $3 billion. The economy lost $11 billion but roughly $8 billion of that is expected to re-emerge later now that the government has reopened and federal workers will start receiving their back pay.
- CBO also said Trump’s trade wars are likely to be a drag on the economy, saying the trade wars have led to import taxes on 12 percent of all incoming goods, or $284 billion worth of imports. Retaliatory tariffs, in turn, have been placed on 9 percent of U.S. exports, worth about $134 billion.
- White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow downplayed the CBO report on the shutdown on Monday, saying “it’s awfully hard to make even the best guesstimates of those kinds of small fractions of numbers.”
THE HILL EVENT: Join The Hill Events for Boundless: Building a 5G World on Wednesday, Feb. 6th featuring Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) and John Curtis (R-Utah). Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack and Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons will sit down with our guests for a series of conversations on the impact of 5G on all aspects of society. RSVP here.
GOOD TO KNOW
- The IRS said it expects to be able to issue most tax refunds in a timely fashion, as the 2019 tax-filing season began Monday, days after the end of the partial government shutdown.
- A little more than a year after President Trump signed his tax-cut bill into law, most firms haven’t altered their hiring or investment plans as a result of the measure, according to a survey released Monday.
- The Treasury Department is projected to borrow $1 trillion for the second year in a row to finance the deficit, according to Bloomberg News.
- Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that all federal employees should receive back pay they missed during the 35-day government shutdown by the end of the week.
- A majority of Americans said in a new poll that they would like the Democratic-held House to use its authority to make President Trump’s tax returns public.
- Op-Ed: Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist for Oxford Economics, argues the end of the shutdown “doesn’t end the economic uncertainty it caused.
ODDS AND ENDS
- Former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn jokingly offered to send President Trump to the U.K. to help negotiate Brexit during a dinner at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.