Overnight Finance: Pope-onomics; McConnell tees up new funding bill

TOMORROW STARTS TONIGHT: PAPAL POLITICS — AND WHAT HE DID NOT SAY. Pete Schroeder for The Hill: Pope Francis’s remarks before Congress Thursday included a plea that politics “cannot be a slave to the economy and finance.” In his address to a joint meeting of Congress, the pope urged lawmakers to ensure that all Americans are boosted by their policies and can “live as one.”

“If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance,” stated the pope’s prepared remarks.

{mosads}”Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life.”

— WORTH NOTING, via Schroeder: The remark about being “slave” to the economy was in the pope’s prepared remarks, but he did not actually deliver the words before Congress. Francis went on to say that business itself is not bad and actually can serve a critical social role by providing economic opportunity. But he did not mince words when it came to criticizing economic activity that he saw as encouraging other problems in society. For example, he criticized the arms trade harshly and the “shameful and culpable silence” of those that let it continue. STORY: http://bit.ly/1iOMUUj

THIS IS OVERNIGHT FINANCE, where we are finally over the strep throat hurdle. I get so bored when I’m not working. But a huge thank you to Schroeder for having my back yesterday at the last minute. Tweet: @kevcirilli; email: kcirilli@digital-stage.thehill.com; and subscribe: http://digital-stage.thehill.com/signup/48.

BIG DEAL: JANET YELLEN MAKES CASE TO WALL STREET FOR YEAR-END RATE HIKE, via WSJ: “Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen laid out her most detailed case yet for the central bank to begin raising short-term interest rates later this year, effectively lobbing a warning to financial markets that the central bank’s decision to keep rates near zero last week wasn’t a shift toward an interminable delay of monetary tightening.

— Ms. Yellen made her case like a prosecutor making a courtroom closing argument. She presented it in a 40-page speech at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, including 40 academic citations, 34 footnotes, nine graphs and an appendix. Central to her argument was a belief that slack in the economy has diminished to a point where inflation pressures should start to gradually build in the coming years. http://on.wsj.com/1KTddTv

MORE POPE-ONOMICS: IS FRANCIS QUALIFIED TO TALK? Rich Lowry in Politico Magazine: “He discusses these matters with essentially the same point of view as a stereotypical black turtleneck-clad graduate hanging out at the university cafe and hoping one day to hit the big time and get one of his pieces excoriating global capitalism published at The Nation… Yes, advanced economies have seen increasing income gaps, but in the context of overall economic growth that has drastically improved conditions for their poor. And globally, inequality has been shrinking, not growing…

“Francis arrived here from a country, communist Cuba, built entirely on economic theft and political oppression, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to say a peep about it. He turned his back on Cuba’s dissidents and tried to spin his way around this abdication in a press availability on his plane over to the U.S….

“The pope’s hostility to modernity should be an affront to anyone whose life has been transformed by innovative medicines, who is living to a once unthinkable ripe old age, who is avoiding unforgiving, backbreaking labor for safer, more meaningful work, and who is living relatively free of violence and disease in a world that — despite its myriad evils — would have been considered an impossible nirvana just a few centuries ago… It is the pope’s role to call us to be ever better, more faithful and mindful of the poor, but not to deny an obvious boon to human progress.” http://politi.co/1KC1299

SIDE SHOW – – > NOT THE ONION: HILLARY GIVES INTERVIEW TO LENA DUNHAM. PEOPLE Magazine got a sneak-peak at the HBO “Girls” star’s interview with the Democratic presidential frontrunner: http://bit.ly/1KTdbLF

BUDGET BATTLE: SENATE REJECTS SPENDING BILL STRIPPING PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDS. From our Jordain Carney: The Senate on Thursday rejected a short-term spending bill that would defund Planned Parenthood, thwarting the opening move by Republican leaders to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. Senators voted 47-52 on ending debate on the short-term continuing resolution, well short of the 60 votes needed. The legislation would have funded the government through Dec. 11. The vote divided Republicans, with eight of them breaking ranks. http://bit.ly/1L9jUTy

AFTER THE VOTE: More from Jordain: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday filed a short-term spending bill that would fund the government and Planned Parenthood, ahead of an end-of-the-month deadline to avoid a shutdown. The move comes after Democrats and some Republicans rejected a short-term spending bill that would have funded the government through Dec. 11. That bill would have stripped federal funding for Planned Parenthood and redirected it to community health centers.

Asked about McConnell’s procedural moves on the Senate floor, a spokesperson for the Republican leader said, “It’s the same as the CR amendment we just voted on with one change: It does not redirect Planned Parenthood funding.”

McConnell hasn’t yet filed cloture on the spending bill, which is being offered as an amendment to a House-passed shell bill. That move would tee up a procedural vote on the continuing resolution (CR). http://bit.ly/1PyRh02

— ESSENTIAL REPORTING: Government employees will still get paid if there’s a shutdown, as Jordain reports: http://bit.ly/1gSmYFm

FIDUCIARY FIGHT: DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT FOR OBAMA’S PLAN DIMINISHES, via me: Ninety-six House Democrats have signed onto a letter calling for President Obama to make significant changes to his regulatory proposal for financial advisers, writing that they’re concerned the current pitch would limit low- and middle-income Americans’ access to financial advice. The missive is a blow to the administration’s efforts to rally support within their own party on a proposal that Obama tried and failed to implement in 2010 — and one that he’s framed as an effort to rein in Wall Street. And it’s a sign that the business community and the financial advice industry has successfully convinced half of the Democratic caucus — as well as all Republicans — that Obama’s current plan does more harm than good. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) circulated the letter, which was first reported by The Hill, and nabbed signatures from different wings of the caucus, including House Democratic vice chairman Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.).

— BEHIND THE SCENES: This is a huge political victory for Moore and her staff. And it’s also a win for the business community, which has failed to rally Democrats in bucking the Warren-wing’s continued attacks that their arguments are just a veiled effort to help Wall Street. Notably, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and House Financial Services Committee ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) did not sign the letter. Read this story: http://bit.ly/1LQyh9M

EX-IM WATCH, I’m hearing from a source close to Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.) that “Fincher is preparing to drop a new bill to reform and reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. Language in this bill is identical to the language in S.819. This legislation includes a majority of the meaningful reforms outlined in HR 597.”

SHOCK POLL: NEW YORK WANTS $15 WAGE INCREASE, via Mark Hensch: The majority of New Yorkers back raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, a new poll finds. Fifty-nine percent back the pay increase versus 38 percent opposed, according to a Siena College survey released on Thursday. The poll comes as Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) pushes a plan to raise the state minimum wage, and amid a growing debate on raising the federal rate. http://bit.ly/1WlCCJr

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