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A crush of other legislative business awaits, including a must-pass piece of business whose deadline is swiftly approaching. Lawmakers have until the end of September at the latest to lift the federal debt ceiling. If they don’t, they risk pitching the country into it’s first-ever default, likely with economically disastrous results.

It’s far from clear that the administration has the situation in hand. President Trump’s point man on the matter, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, is projecting confidence. “We’re going to get the debt ceiling right,” he told my colleague Damian Paletta in a Monday interview. “I don’t think there is any question that the debt ceiling will be raised. I don’t think there is anybody who intends to put the government’s ability to pay its bills at risk.”

But the debate splits congressional Republicans along roughly similar lines as the health-care bill did, with hardline conservatives demanding a price for their support that other GOP lawmakers won’t abide. Specifically, among the options floated by the far-right House Freedom Caucus: attaching an extension of federal borrowing authority to an Obamacare repeal (which is now even more questionable), or $250 billion in mandatory spending cuts, or yanking back unobligated funds from federal agencies and selling off some government assets.

Mnuchin remains strongly in favor of a clean debt ceiling hike. “My preference is to get it clean,” he told Damian on Monday. “My preference is to get it done, and my preference is to get it done sooner rather than later.”



But Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the Freedom Caucus, estimates that only 40 to 50 Republicans would back that approach, putting the onus on Democrats to carry the measure — likely rendering it a nonstarter. It hasn’t helped that White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, a former Freedom Caucus member, has undercut Mnuchin from the start by advocating conservative lawmakers use the measure as an opportunity to extract some policy concessions. Trump has since clarified that Mnuchin speaks for the administration on the matter, but that hasn’t compelled the hardliners on the Hill to back down.

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Treasury officials are considering their options in the event they breach the debt limit. Pressure is building. A Bloomberg story last week suggested Mnuchin might have to dust off Obama-era contingency plans that call for prioritizing debt payments. It sufficiently spooked investors — with some believing that would constitute default — that Treasury officials called bond traders to assure them that scenario wouldn’t come to pass.

The situation presents an early crucible for Mnuchin, a newcomer still learning to navigate Washington. The stakes could hardly be higher. And unlike with health care, doing nothing isn’t an option.

Meanwhile, Republicans angling for something to show for their total control of the policymaking machinery are now pinning their hopes on a tax code rewrite. The House GOP unveiled a spending blueprint Tuesday morning that takes an ambitious approach to overhauling taxes but proposes steep spending cuts that could be its death knell, Mike DeBonis writes. The package sets the stage "for a potential $203 billion rollback of financial industry regulations, federal employee benefits, welfare spending and more."

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More from Mike:

Like the spending blueprint released this year by President Trump, the House plan envisions major cuts to federal spending over the coming decade, bringing the budget into balance by relying on accelerated economic growth to boost revenue. Under the House plan, defense spending would steadily increase over 10 years while nondefense discretionary spending would decline to $424 billion — 23 percent below the $554 billion the federal government is spending in that category this year. Unlike Trump’s budget, the House proposal cuts into Medicare and Social Security — entitlement programs that the president has pledged to preserve. The House plan also makes a less-rosy economic growth assumption of 2.6 percent versus the 3 percent eyed by the Trump administration. Both, however, exceed the 1.9 percent figure used by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in its most recent economic estimates.

Among other cuts, the Financial Services Committee would need to find $14 billion in savings, a target that could allow Republicans to repeal significant chunks of Dodd-Frank. The House-passed CHOICE Act that gutted post-crisis financial regulation would cut the deficit by about $24 billion over a decade, the Congressional Budget Office found.

The House Budget Committee is set to kick off the process Wednesday by marking up its proposal. But it is still drawing potentially fatal fire from two directions within the party. Conservatives want much deeper cuts to mandatory spending and guarantees about what the tax overhaul it enables will include. Moderates, on the other hand, object to the spending cuts it calls for and want to open the process up to Democrats.

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Republican leaders, Mike writes, are trying to whistle past those differences in the hopes of keeping their tax agenda on track.

MARKET MOVERS

— A tax overhaul, if Republicans can get to it, won't be a picnic. Major disputes loom on the basic outlines of a plan.

Among the big remaining sticking points, top negotiators from the House, Senate, and the administration haven’t yet decided whether the package should be permanent and paid-for. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) are pushing that approach, while McConnell, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, aren't wedded to the idea, the Washington Examiner’s Joseph Lawler and David Drucker report.

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But Republicans have a long ways to go before that tax debate is more than academic. The Wall Street Journal's Richard Rubin lays out all the steps between here and there:

TRUMP TRACKER

— Trump’s economic agenda may be imploding on Capitol Hill. But hey, at least it’s “Made in America” week at the White House. The president took advantage, carving out some time from what turned into another bad-news day on Monday to sit in a fire truck. Here are some photos from the scene.

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From reporter Yashar Ali:

From NBC News's Bradd Jaffy:

From CNN's Kaitlan Collins:

A clip from CSPAN:

— Not even the administration's hand-picked theme for the week shielded Trump from some uncomfortable scrutiny. The White House wouldn't say Monday whether Trump wants his own retail empire and that of his eldest daughter to abide by the "Made in America" standard he's attempting to promote. The Post's Abby Phillip reports: "Asked whether the president would begin by making his own commitment to making products in the United States, White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to comment on the president's businesses. 'It's not appropriate for me to stand up here and talk about a business,' Spicer said. 'That would be a little out of bounds.' But later, he defended the Ivanka Trump Co.'s use of foreign labor to manufacture products, arguing that some simply can't be made in the United States anymore. The argument is similar to the explanation given by the president of the Ivanka Trump brand, Abigail Klem, who said that making products in the United States at a large scale is currently not possible.'"

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— The administration on Monday also released a list of broad objectives it hopes to achieve in renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, including some provisions it appears to have lifted from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Post's Ana Swanson reports: "More than a third of U.S. exports flow to Canada and Mexico, and business and labor groups were watching closely to see what Trump's team would prioritize in the negotiations. Companies that export products to Canada and Mexico are wary of anything that could limit their future access to those markets. Firms that have struggled against foreign competition, as well as labor groups that have seen their members' wages undercut by foreign workers, were hoping for measures that would give them a leg up."

— Meanwhile, Trump for now is sticking by his pick to head the Export-Import Bank, despite building pressure from business groups for the president to find somebody else. Former Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) earned the suspicion of big business interests that rely on the bank's loan guarantees by speaking out against it repeatedly while he served in Congress. Politico's Zachary Warmbrodt and Andrew Restuccia report: "Administration officials said Garrett’s nomination has been a topic of conversation among senior Trump aides in recent days. Aides have pointed to intensifying blowback from influential business associations that are allied with the president, including an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal last week by National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons that blasted Garrett."

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POCKET CHANGE

— Billionaire Nelson Peltz is gunning for Proctor & Gamble in what promises to be an epic clash between the activist investor and the corporate giant. Peltz’s investment firm, Trian Fund Management, has taken a $3.5 billion stake in the company in a bid to force it to cut costs and bureaucracy. The showdown is the latest in a series of confrontations between deep-pocketed investors and major companies they’ve deemed sclerotic. Michael J. de la Merced of the New York Times reports: “Over the past five years, Procter & Gamble’s stock price has lagged behind the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, which rose 81.5 percent compared with the company’s increase of almost 34 percent. Sales at the consumer-products conglomerate have declined during the past four years, and the company has cycled through three chief executives in eight years.”

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THE REGULATORS

— When it comes to its rule banning mandatory arbitration requirements, OCC would really like the CFPB to slow down. Keith Noreika, the acting Comptroller of the Currency, is asking Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray to hold off implementation until his agency can review its impact. The Wall Street Journal’s Rachel Witkowski reports: “The back-and-forth between the two regulators could increase the chance congressional Republicans attempt to step in and stop the arbitration rule. Senate Republicans, for instance, are considering steps to overturn it and House Republicans are looking into whether they could hold Mr. Cordray in contempt for not complying with information requests related to the rule.”

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THE FUNNIES

DAYBOOK

Today

Vice President Pence will will speak at the National Retail Federation Summit.

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs will hold a nomination hearing

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance Subcommittee will hold a hearing on “Managing Terrorism Financing Risk in Remittances and Money Transfers."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness holds an event on the CFPB’s anti-arbitration rule.

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Investment will hold a hearing on “The Cost of Being a Public Company in Light of Sarbanes-Oxley and the Federalization of Corporate Governance.”

Coming Up

Wednesday . The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade will hold a hearing on restricting North Korea’s access to finance on

Thursday . The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on housing finance reform on

Thursday . The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade will hold a hearing on “Monetary Policy v. Fiscal Policy” on

Thursday. The Heritage Foundation will hold an event on social and economic trends on

BULL SESSION

President Trump says 'we've signed more bills ... than any president ever':

Watch President Trump it in a fire truck on the White House lawn:

President Trump says that U.S. wealth has "been drained":