Overnight Finance: Wells Fargo fined $185M for fake accounts | Warren wants tax changes after Apple ruling | Lawmakers try to put focus on deficit

Wells Fargo slapped with $185M fine for opening unauthorized accounts: Thousands of Wells Fargo employees secretly opened deposit and credit card accounts to boost their sales numbers, racking up millions in fees and other charges for consumers, a regulator said Thursday.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined Wells Fargo $185 million, including a $100 million penalty the bank will pay to the CFPB’s Civil Penalty Fund — the largest fine ever levied by the regulator.  

{mosads}”Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray.

“Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed,” Cordray said. The Hill’s Vicki Needham tells us why: http://bit.ly/2c9g2Uu.

House GOP: White House paid Iran ransom for prisoners: House Republicans on Thursday pressed Obama administration officials on whether a settlement with Iran constituted a ransom for freed American prisoners, comparing the payment to midnight drug-deal money drop.

Democrats dismissed the House Financial Services subcommittee hearing as a political ploy to discredit the president, not a genuine effort to learn more about the issue.

At focus was a $1.7 billion cash settlement of a 30-year-old case that preceded the freeing of several American prisoners in January. The administration made the payment shortly after Iran and the U.S. each freed prisoners who were citizens of the other country.

Administration officials insisted the payment coincided with several diplomatic efforts with Iran, while Republicans claimed their efforts shadily funded terrorism with untraceable money to free American prisoners.

“Cash is the currency of terrorism. We paid cash to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. And the question is why was that done?” asked House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). I take you to the contentious hearing here: http://bit.ly/2bXoZTk.

Warren presses for corporate tax changes in wake of Apple ruling: Congress should pass corporate tax changes that require corporations to pay their “fair share” in light of the European Union’s ruling that Apple owes Ireland $14.5 billion in back taxes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday.

“The door is now open for Congress to fix our own corporate tax code, which has allowed the biggest multinationals to shirk their obligations for decades,” Warren wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times.

The European Union’s executive arm ruled last week that Apple received $14.5 billion in illegal Irish tax breaks that gave the tech company an unfair advantage over other businesses.

“Both Apple and Ireland are appealing the decision, but the commission’s announcement was the latest sign that multinational corporations are running out of places to hide from paying taxes,” Warren said. The Hill’s Naomi Jagoda walks us through Warren’s proposals: http://bit.ly/2che9qs.

Party like it’s 2012: Lawmakers struggle to steer spotlight back to deficit: Several lawmakers are trying to turn back the clock and return Washington’s focus to debt and deficits.

Members of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) gathered Thursday to discuss the nation’s finances, an issue that dominated top policy discussions in President Obama’s first term, but now has slid almost entirely off the political radar.

Beyond repeated pleas for action from both sides of the dais, there was little sign during the throwback hearing that the political traction that froze the issue in the past has moved much since “grand bargain” talks dissolved in 2011, however.

Members of both parties lamented that neither major-party presidential candidate has made debt and deficits a priority in their campaign. The Hill’s Peter Schroeder tells us what they’re doing about it: http://bit.ly/2c9gCkP.

Happy Thursday and welcome to Overnight Finance, where we’re wondering if Sen. Roger Wicker got tickets to “Hamilton” before we did. I’m Sylvan Lane, and here’s your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.

Tonight’s highlights include movement on the House Financial Services Committee’s Dodd-Frank reform bill, a push to staff the Export-Import Bank and Warren’s war against the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

See something I missed? Let me know at slane@digital-staging.thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N.

Study: Trump’s defense plan would add $150 billion to deficit: The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that Donald Trump’s newly revealed defense spending plan would cost roughly $450 billion over the next decade, but his cost offset plans would only cover two-thirds of that sum.

On Wednesday, Trump proposed ending defense sequestration caps and increasing the size of every military branch in a plan that borrowed heavily from a Heritage Foundation proposal.

The CRFB report said the GOP nominee “outlines three major areas where he would generate savings to pay for his offsets — cutting unauthorized appropriations, reducing improper payments and underpaid taxes, and shrinking the federal workforce through attrition — though even generous estimates of these policies suggest they would only save about $300 billion over a decade. On net, this defense plan would cost $150 billion if additional offsets were not identified.” Here’s more from The Hill’s Harper Neidig: http://bit.ly/2cdwOjr.

Join The Hill on Wednesday, September 14 for “Preparing for the Next Disaster: A Policy Discussion on Community Resilience,” featuring Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), and Timothy W. Manning, Deputy Administrator for Protection and National Preparedness at FEMA. Topics of discussion include preparedness efforts to increase community resilience and the role of federal, state & local government in pre-disaster mitigation. RSVP here.

Warren ramping up opposition to Pacific trade deal: Sen. Elizabeth Warren is rallying congressional lawmakers to oppose a massive Asia-Pacific trade agreement over an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) regime she argues will change U.S. laws and hurt consumers and workers.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who sparred with President Obama last year over the international conflict resolution system, joined more than 220 law professors and economists in calling on Congress to reject the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) over the inclusion of the ISDS in the agreement.

The reignited efforts by Warren to stop the Pacific deal are in response to the president’s pursuit of a vote on the TPP after the November elections and before he leaves office.
Warren told reporters on a Wednesday conference call that ISDS allows for “rigged pseudo-courts” that undermine U.S. law.

“It’s about leverage for big companies to threaten and intimidate governments that might dare take action that threatens their profits,” Warren said. Vicki Needham takes us there: http://bit.ly/2bXps89.

House passes bill to ease stock sale disclosures: The House on Thursday passed a bill meant to ease capital access for small company stock sales, which Democrats fear would put investors at risk with limited information.

The bill, approved 236-178 along party lines, combines three measures passed out of the House Financial Services Committee that would roll back Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure and advertising regulations for companies with smaller stock offerings. I break them down for you here: http://bit.ly/2cFX1sH.

Business groups urge Congress to give Ex-Im Bank power to make larger loans: Two business groups are backing congressional efforts to ensure the Export-Import Bank can approve larger loans amid an impasse in the Senate over approving a board nominee.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday urged lawmakers to approve a stopgap spending bill that would allow the Ex-Im Bank to have only two board members, one short of the three needed for a quorum, to make loans of more than $10 million again.

NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons and Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue said a continuing resolution (CR) is the most viable path to restoring full operations at the 82-year-old agency.

“A supermajority in Congress has already settled the question of Ex-Im reauthorization and there is simply no more time to waste,” Timmons and Donohue said in a statement: http://bit.ly/2c1Nxct.

Coal miners arrested after rally for pension fix: Thousands of coal miners and their allies rallied outside the Capitol on Thursday in support of a bill to rescue their union’s troubled pension fund.

United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts spoke passionately and at length to members of his union, their families and labor-movement allies.

He was joined by a dozen lawmakers supporting the bill, known as the Miners Protection Act, which would transfer money from the Abandoned Mine Lands fund into the UMWA’s multi-employer pension plan. The plan is due to start going insolvent later this year, threatening pension checks and the healthcare benefits that come from the same mine lands fund.

“We’ve got to pass this legislation by the end of this year. And if we don’t pass it by the end of the year, people will be without healthcare, and soon, pensions,” Roberts said at the event next to the Capitol reflecting pool. “So, brothers and sisters, we must have help from both sides of the aisle.”

Roberts and 84 other protesters sat in a nearby roadway after the rally in an attempt to get arrested. Capitol Police officers did so, after formally warning them. The Hill’s Timothy Cama takes us there: http://bit.ly/2cdx30l.

Business groups push for EB-5 renewal: With less than a month before a critical but controversial investor visa program runs out, a coalition of business groups is urging Congress to act quickly.

The coalition–which includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Real Estate Roundtable and the American Immigration Lawyers Association–cited “$15 billion from 2005-2015 creating well over 100,000 new US jobs” in its push to renew the program. You can read the full letter here.

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Write us with tips, suggestions and news: slane@digital-staging.thehill.com, vneedham@digital-staging.thehill.com; pschroeder@digital-staging.thehill.com, and njagoda@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @SylvanLane,  @VickofTheHill; @PeteSchroeder; and @NJagoda.