Overnight Finance: Outrage builds over Equifax breach | US debt passes $20 trillion | Trump scrambles tax reform politics | Trump may seek more disaster aid

Mass outrage over Equifax breach: The massive breach of credit rating firm Equifax is attracting scrutiny from government officials across the country.

Lawmakers from both parties have expressed concern over the hack, which could have left vulnerable sensitive personal information for as many as 143 million people.  

The New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois attorneys general have announced formal investigations into the hack.

Officials are alarmed by the scope of the breach as well as Equifax’s terms of service which forces individuals to waive their right to a class-action lawsuit. The Hill’s Ali Breland tells us what lawmakers are doing: http://bit.ly/2xrRuTF.

 

Senators demand answers on Equifax executives who sold stock after breach: The Senate Finance Committee wants answers from Equifax on when three of its executives, who sold almost $2 million in stock, learned of a massive cybersecurity breach the company experienced in July.

The sale has raised eyebrows among some observers who are concerned about potential insider trading violations.

Committee leaders Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) pressed Equifax CEO Richard Smith for details on the scope of the breach in which the data of 143 million Americans was compromised, who is affected by it, and the actions Equifax is taking to mitigate its impacts.

Hatch and Wyden then pressed for specifics on when three executives were notified of the cyberattack.

Equifax Chief Financial Officer John Gamble and president of U.S. information solutions Joseph Loughran collectively sold shares and exercised stock options totaling approximately $1.5 million on Aug. 1. Rodolfo Ploder, president of workforce solutions, sold approximately $250,000 worth of stock on Aug. 2. Details of the hack, which occurred on July 29, were not yet made public at that time. Ali Breland has more: http://bit.ly/2eZPz11.

 

{mosads}

Trump scrambles tax reform debate: President Trump is scrambling the politics of tax reform.

Republicans in Congress have been driving the process with little input from Democrats, but Trump’s surprise debt-and-spending pact last week has both parties wondering if things are about to change.

The president’s comments and those by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday give an opening for Democrats.

“The president is committed to moving legislation through,” Sanders said. “He wants Congress to act. He’s happy to have Democrats be part of that.”

A tax code revamp anchored by deep tax cuts has taken on more political importance after the GOP’s failure to repeal ObamaCare, with the president craving a big legislative win before the end of the year. The Hill’s Naomi Jagoda reports: http://bit.ly/2xscgT7.

 

Bipartisan bill would force Treasury to put Tubman on $20 bill: A bipartisan House bill would replace President Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department is reconsidering plans to make the change.

Reps. John Katko (R-N.Y.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) introduced a bill Friday that would force the Treasury Department to swap Jackson for Tubman on the $20, a change announced by the Obama administration in 2016.

The bill would require Treasury to update the $20 with Tubman’s portrait by 2020, making her the only woman to appear on the front of a United States paper note.

Katko and Cummings called on Treasury to honor Tubman, the abolitionist icon that helped thousands of slaves escape to freedom, and introduced a similar bill to do so in 2015.

“Harriet Tubman is a hero who bravely led countless Americans to freedom and opportunity, courageously fought for her country, and was an outspoken advocate for women’s suffrage,” said Katko, whose central New York district includes a national park named after Tubman.

“Too often, our nation does not do enough to honor the contributions of women in American history, especially women of color,” said Cummings, former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus: http://bit.ly/2xspzDb.

 

Happy Monday and welcome back to Overnight Finance. 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-staging.thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N.

 

On tap tomorrow

• Senate Banking Committee: Hearing entitled “Examining the Fintech Landscape,” 10 a.m. http://bit.ly/2vLc1Ol. (You can bet Equifax is going to come up at this one.)
• Joint Economic Committee: Hearing entitled “The Dynamic Gains from Free Digital Trade for the U.S. Economy,” 10 a.m. http://bit.ly/2vKUqX1.
• House Financial Services Committee: Hearing entitled “Examining the Relationship Between Prudential Regulation and Monetary Policy at the Federal Reserve,” 2 p.m. http://bit.ly/2vLl9mg.

 

US federal debt passes $20 trillion for first time: The U.S. federal government’s gross debt surpassed $20 trillion on Friday, according to a daily Treasury statement.

The debt jumped from $19.8 trillion to $20.1 trillion after Congress suspended the debt ceiling for three months, allowing the Treasury to borrow again on the open markets.

For months, it had been using off-book extraordinary measures to keep from defaulting. Since President Trump signed a bill including the debt lift Friday, it was able to start unwinding those measures with regular borrowing, and increase the debt.

But that figure includes $5.5 trillion in intragovernmental debt, which is debt that one part of the government owes another, and does not impact governmental finances the same way, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The total of debt held by the public stands at roughly $14.6 trillion.

Still, deficit hawks reacted with alarm.

“Surpassing $20 trillion in debt is the latest indicator of our nation’s dire fiscal condition,” said Michael A. Peterson, president and CEO of the fiscally conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation. http://bit.ly/2jke8a6.

 

Trump may ask Congress for more disaster funding: The White House is prepared to ask Congress for more money to fund disaster relief efforts in response to Hurricane Irma, which has caused widespread devastation in Florida and U.S. islands.

Homeland security adviser Tom Bossert told reporters Monday that President Trump might seek more funding, but added “right now, we have plenty of resources to get through this.”

“The president and [Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney and others have started the process of a bipartisan discussion on this point,” Bossert said. “We’ll ask for a third, perhaps fourth supplemental for the purpose of rebuilding. We will do it smartly.”

Bossert declined to say how much money the administration may ask for, saying it will depend on the eventual amount of damage.

Irma has killed at least seven people in the U.S. and left almost 6 million people in Florida without power. The storm has caused floods in cities across the Sunshine State and flash flood emergencies have been issued in South Carolina. The Hill’s Jordan Fabian reports: http://bit.ly/2xs6CjN.

 

Moody’s: Debt-limit deal could hurt prospects for tax reform: The short-term debt-limit agreement reached by President Trump and congressional Democratic leaders last week could hurt the prospects for a rewrite of the tax code, Moody’s Investors Service said Monday.

“The extension of debt ceiling and government funding debates into fourth-quarter 2017 may limit Congress’ ability to pass tax reform,” analysts at the rating agency wrote in a report.

Trump on Friday signed legislation that extends federal government funding and the debt ceiling through Dec. 8.

The bill came about as the result of an agreement Trump made with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), while congressional Republican leaders wanted a longer-term suspension of the debt ceiling. Administration officials said that Trump made the agreement in order to “clear the decks” for tax reform.

But Moody’s noted that the debt-and-spending deal “only provides a brief resumption of normal government operations” and that negotiations over raising the debt limit will have to restart in a few months: http://bit.ly/2xrT47Q.

 

More on Equifax… Lawmakers push credit report legislation after breach: Lawmakers are putting forward legislation to catch and correct credit reporting errors in the wake of the massive Equifax hack in which the personal information of 143 million Americans was stolen.

Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) reintroduced legislation on Monday aimed at making it easier for Americans to prevent and resolve identity theft, fraud and credit report mistakes.

The “Stop Errors in Credit Use and Reporting (SECURE) Act” would direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to establish minimum standards for credit reporting agencies.

Currently, credit reporting agencies are not required to correctly match individuals’ names, addresses or Social Security numbers. In many cases, this leads to credit card reports with inaccurate information. Under the proposed legislation, agencies would be required to resolve any errors that they find. Ali Breland explains: http://bit.ly/2xsa4Lh.

 

Equifax breach could warrant new regs on personal data: White House: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that the massive Equifax breach could warrant more regulations to protect Americans’ personal data.

Sanders said the White House would look into “the best ways to make sure that Americans are protected” from breaches, days after the credit reporting firm acknowledged that as many as 143 million U.S. consumers had their personal data exposed to hackers.

Sanders was responding to a reporter’s question about whether the breach warrants new regulations on the handling of Americans’ personal data at the White House briefing Monday afternoon.

“I think this is something we have to look into extensively,” Sanders replied. “Certainly, something we have to explore — the best ways to make sure that Americans are protected in that sense.” http://bit.ly/2xs8N77.

 

AT&T workers in contract dispute to protest at iPhone launch: AT&T workers are planning a demonstration outside Apple headquarters on Tuesday during the highly anticipated iPhone 8 launch to draw attention to their ongoing contract dispute.

Members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) say that AT&T has been cutting pay, laying off workers and offshoring jobs at an alarming rate.

According to the announcement, hundreds of workers are expected to show up and demonstrators plan to chant and display signs that read “iMay get outsourced by AT&T.”

AT&T spokesman Marty Richter said the new contract would offer employees competitive salaries averaging nearly $70,000 a year and that the company is confident the workers will “be better off financially in their new contract.” http://bit.ly/2xsFl0S.

 

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