 Happy Thursday 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. See something I missed? Let me know at slane@thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N. Write us with tips, suggestions and news: slane@thehill.com, vneedham@thehill.com, njagoda@thehill.com and nelis@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @SylvanLane, @VickofTheHill, @NJagoda and @NivElis. THE BIG DEAL-- Liberal groups urge Dems to obtain Trump's tax returns: More than 50 progressive groups are urging congressional Democrats to obtain President Trump's tax returns next year, highlighting how pressure over the issue has grown following a New York Times report that Trump's father employed complicated tax schemes to avoid paying the IRS on wealth that went to his children. "We urge all members of Congress to support this effort on Day One of the 116th Congress and expect the returns to be made public for the good of the American people soon after," the groups wrote in a letter sent this week to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Richard Neal (D-Mass.). "Eliminating corruption and conflicts of interest among our highest elected officials and restoring the faith of the American people in our government -- stated goals of the Democratic Party in this campaign and in the next Congress -- demand nothing less," the groups added. Here's more from The Hill's Naomi Jagoda. Refresher: - Trump is the first president in decades who hasn't released his tax returns. He has said he won't release them while under audit by the IRS, though the agency has said that nothing prevents people from releasing their own tax information.
- Efforts by congressional Democrats to get Congress to request Trump's tax returns have been unsuccessful so far because Republicans control both chambers of Congress. But if Democrats take control of at least one chamber in the midterm elections, they would be able to request the returns from the Treasury.
- Both Wyden and Neal have said they would seek the returns if they become chairmen, but neither of them have committed to making all of the documents public.
LEADING THE DAY Maxine Waters responds to mailed bombs: 'I ain't scared' Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) said in a new interview that she "ain't scared" after being targeted by two packages containing pipe bombs. "We have to keep to doing what we're doing in order to make this country right; that's what I intend to do, and as the young people say, 'I ain't scared,'" Waters told Blavity. The ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee also called on President Trump to "take responsibility for the kind of violence that we are seeing for the first time in different ways," in the wake of multiple explosive devices sent to prominent members of her party. "I think the president of United States should take responsibility for the kind of violence that we are seeing for the first time in different ways," Waters said. "I think the president of the United States has been dog-whistling to his constituency, making them believe that their problems are caused by those people over there. Trump unveils most aggressive action to target drug prices: President Trump on Thursday announced a proposal to base payments for certain drugs off of lower prices in other countries, his most aggressive move to lower drug prices in the U.S. The proposition to have the government intervene to lower drug prices is farther reaching than proposals often favored by Republicans. "Same company, same box, same pill, made in the exact same location," Trump said in a speech at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). "And you go to some countries and it would be 20 percent of what we pay." "We're fixing it," he added. The announcement comes less than two weeks ahead of the midterm elections, where Republicans have been on the defensive on health care for their votes to repeal ObamaCare and weaken pre-existing condition protections. The Hill's Peter Sullivan explains here. UK fines Facebook over Cambridge Analytica scandal: The United Kingdom on Thursday officially fined Facebook the maximum possible penalty of $644,600, or 500,000 British pounds, for its actions in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The Information Commissioner's Office's (ICO), a British government watchdog, found that, between 2007 and 2014, Facebook's practice of making large amounts of user data available to third-party app developers was done without proper consent from users. Data on 87 million Facebook accounts was obtained within this time frame, that made its way into the hands of the British research firm, Cambridge Analytica. The firm was hired by the Trump campaign during the 2016 election and allegedly used the data to attempt to suppress some voting groups. The Hill's Ali Breland has it all here. GOOD TO KNOW - State bank regulators on Thursday sued a federal agency that they say is overstepping its bounds by offering national bank charters to financial technology startups, according to Politico.
- The FinCEN employee arrested last week for alleged leaks to a BuzzFeed reporter was a Trump supporter who had bureaucratic complaints dating back to the Obama administration, according to the Wall Street Journal
- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell has been quietly building support on Capitol Hill to protect the central bank's independence amid Trump's attacks, according to the Washington Post.
- A top Federal Reserve official fired a rare public warning Wednesday, saying that banks appear to be chasing increasingly dangerous deals and forgoing protections against borrowers going bust, according to Bloomberg.
- Few analysts see a Trump-friendly U.S. stock recovery before the elections, according to Reuters.
- The best way forward for the U.S. central bank is more interest-rate hikes, said new Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida, on Thursday in his first public remarks since taking office late last month.
- Trump's decision to nominate Nellie Liang, a seasoned financial regulator, to the Federal Reserve's board of governors is eliciting a rare show of public opposition from some Senate Republicans, who want the Fed to loosen its grip on large banks, according to the New York Times.
ODDS AND ENDS - Here's an interesting perspective on why Maxine Waters might be more of a dealmaker if she gets the gavel on the House Financial Services Committee than some might think.
- Op-Ed: Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Economic Competitiveness, writes for The Hill on stagnant wage growth.
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