On The Money: Midterms to shake up House finance panel | Chamber chief says US not in trade war | Mulvaney moving CFPB unit out of DC | Conservatives frustrated over big spending bills

Happy Wednesday 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.

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THE BIG DEAL–Midterms to shake up top posts on House finance panel: The midterms are poised to have a significant impact on how the House oversees the financial sector, regardless of which side wins in November. 

A Democratic takeover of the House would propel Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the House Financial Services Committee’s ranking member and a fierce critic of President Trump, into a powerful perch with subpoena power.

Her ascension could pose new political challenges for the nation’s biggest banks and force the White House to contend with congressional probes into the president’s personal finances during the 2020 election season.

Republicans, meanwhile, are attempting to defend their House majority, and GOP lawmakers on the Financial Services Committee are jockeying for position to succeed Hensarling, who’s retiring from Congress at the end of this term.

I give you the latest on the race for the panel’s gavel here.

The breakdown:

• Committee Republicans and industry lobbyists say Rep. Patrick McHenry (N.C.) is the top GOP contender, and would likely claim the gavel with little or no competition. But some GOP lawmakers expect McHenry to climb the House leadership ladder as Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) vie to replace retiring Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
• GOP Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer (Mo.) and Bill Huizenga (Mich.) have started pitching themselves for the gavel, but both told The Hill that they would not run against McHenry. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) has also expressed interest in running.
• Hensarling has not weighed in on the race to replace him, and the three likely GOP successors are expected to continue their efforts to ease financial regulations and rein in federal regulators who they say are smothering banks and lenders.
• Waters has vowed to reinforce Dodd-Frank and protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while pursuing bills to bolster the supply of affordable housing, if she takes control of the panel. She also has proposed a bill to dismantle major banks that are consistently penalized for abusing their customers, citing Wells Fargo as a prime culprit.

LEADING THE DAY

US Chamber chief says US not in trade war: U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue said Wednesday that he does not believe the U.S. is in a trade war, despite the 10 percent tariff that President Trump announced this week on $200 billion in Chinese imports.

China fired back on Tuesday with tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods, while Trump has threatened to tax all Chinese imports to the U.S.

Donohue said a prolonged trade war would be catastrophic to the global economy, but said he didn’t think it had actually started yet.

“The single greatest threat facing the economy is a real trade war. I don’t think we’re there quite yet,” Donohue said during a Wednesday breakfast conference with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, adding that he believes Trump would not allow mounting tariffs to decimate the U.S.

“I don’t believe that the White House thinks that it’s a positive thing to do,” he said. 

I’ll tell you why here.

Mulvaney plans to move some CFPB staff to new Atlanta office: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) plans to relocate a group of employees from Washington, D.C., to a new satellite office in Atlanta in an effort to reduce costs.

Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney is seeking to open the regional office to host a small number of analysts and managers who work with agency examiners assigned to financial institutions in the southeast United States, according to a senior agency official familiar with the plans.

The staffers would be moved from a CFPB office in downtown Washington, near the bureau’s headquarters, to a building in Atlanta owned by the General Services Administration. I’ll tell you more about the plan and why it’s been put in motion here.

Conservatives frustrated over big spending bills: Weeks before the midterm elections, conservatives in the House are gaining little traction on fiscal issues as Congress passed one spending bill after another in bipartisan votes.

It’s a significant shift from the last few years, when the House Freedom Caucus often threw a wrench into appropriations plans with demands to cut mandatory spending and advance other conservative priorities.

“It’s a little bit frustrating right now,” said Rep. Mark Walker, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest GOP caucus in the House.

Walker issued a warning last week that some RSC members may vote against a package of spending bills the House is due to consider when it returns to session.

But Walker admits that he and other RSC members opposed to the package would seem to have little hope in blocking it.

The Hill’s Niv Elis has more here on why conservatives are in a jam.

GOOD TO KNOW

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday said that White House budget director Mick Mulvaney might have broken federal law by meeting with Republican donors and campaign officials earlier this month.
• U.S. employers are boosting benefits like bonuses and vacation time at a faster pace than salaries, a move that gives them more flexibility to pull back that compensation if the economy turns south, The Wall Street Journal reports.
• Leaders of three of the nation’s most powerful business groups detailed six priorities they say need to be fulfilled to earn their support for an update of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to get through Congress.
• The European Union antitrust regulator that has been aggressively policing American tech giants said on Wednesday that her office is now looking into Amazon’s business practices.
• Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) announced Wednesday plans to “actively campaign” despite previously announcing he’d suspend his re-election effort as he fights federal securities fraud charges tied to alleged insider trading.
• CNBC explores why China could feel more economic pain than the U.S would from a trade war.
• President Trump is set to nominate Nellie Liang, a former Federal Reserve economist who created its first office of financial stability, to the central bank’s board of governors, according to The Wall Street Journal.

ODDS AND ENDS

• Alibaba founder Jack Ma on Wednesday backtracked on his plan to create 1 million jobs in the United States, two days after President Trump slapped tariffs on about $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.
• A major bug in Bitcoin software could have crashed the virtual currency, according to Vice.