Democrats Trade Budget Cuts for Debt Ceiling Extension

The House is scheduled to vote on the proposal Wednesday before passing it to the Senate.


The debt ceiling deal reached by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California, and President Joe Biden would suspend the federal debt ceiling until January 1, 2025, instead of linking it to a specific amount of debt in exchange for certain spending cuts and freezes and changes to federal permitting regulations.

The agreement, which is scheduled for a House vote Wednesday before going to the Senate, would cap discretionary defense spending at about $886.5 billion and non-defense discretionary spending at about $703.5 billion for fiscal 2024, which begins on October 1, and limit fiscal 2025 spending to a 1% increase. It would also rescind about $20 billion of the $80 billion granted to the IRS by the Inflation Reduction Act over 10 years and expand work requirements for federal food stamps and the federal welfare program known as Temporary Aid to Needy Families. It does not alter work requirements for Medicaid or alter the various incentives related to green energy in the IRA.

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The Biden administration would also be forbidden from further extending the COVID-19-era student debt repayment pause past the end of August, though the agreement is agnostic on the debt relief program itself, effectively leaving it to the Supreme Court, which is deliberating on a case now, to settle.

The bill clears the remaining permitting requirements for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a politically sensitive natural gas pipeline that would run through parts of West Virginia and Virginia that has been championed aggressively by Senator Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia.

The House Rules Committee hosted a hearing Tuesday in which the chairs and ranking members of the House Ways and Means and House Budget committees were called to testify. The purpose of the hearing was to debate the rules concerning the floor debate and vote on the bill, such as the length of time permitted for debate and what amendments can be offered.

The leadership of the three committees, as well as the membership of the House Oversight Committee, spent a lot of time assigning blame, highlighting their issues with the proposal and lingering on “why we are here today”—but all signaled an intent to support the bill as written.

Representative Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, chairman of the Rules Committee, quipped that “this bill could have been a lot more awful than it is.” Representative Mike Thompson, D-California, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, commented that the proposal “averts what would be a catastrophic default” and “if we allow the economy to crash, nobody will be lifted out of poverty.”

Similar remarks reflecting mixed feelings, but an overall sentiment of support was expressed by Representatives Ron Estes, R-Kansas, and Brendan Boyle, D-Pennsylvania, the leaders of the Budget Committee, who were also present at the hearing.

Representative Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina, a more conservative member of the House Oversight Committee, who previously said he would vote against the bill if it is not amended, said during the hearing that he would ultimately vote for the bill “because it puts us in the right direction.”

McCarthy said Sunday that the full House will vote on the bill on Wednesday. This will allow the Senate time to consider it before June 5, the date by which the Department of the Treasury has said the U.S. will run out of money to pay its obligations.

The House Oversight Committee was still debating the measure at the time this article was published.

Advisor Group Issues Alert for 2021 Vendor Data Breach Affecting Clients

Personal information exfiltrated from RRD’s corporate data system included users’ names, addresses and Social Security numbers.


The Advisor Group, a network of independent wealth management firms, sent out notice of a 2021 data breach that occurred at vendor R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., putting users’ personal information, including Social Security numbers, at risk.

The organization alerted individuals of the security incident in a letter, dated May 8, on behalf of member organizations FSC Securities, Royal Alliance, SagePoint Financial and Woodbury Financial.

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“On December 23, 2021, RRD, identified a systems intrusion in its technical environment,” the firm wrote in the letter. “RRD’s investigation subsequently revealed that your personal information appears to have been included in the data that was exfiltrated from their corporate data system, and it notified us of the same on January 17, 2023.”

As an Advisor Group vendor, RRD fulfills some of the firm’s client mailings. Personal information exfiltrated from RRD’s corporate data system included users’ names, addresses and Social Security numbers.

“Shortly after discovering the intrusion, RRD engaged forensic resources and third parties to assist in its evaluation of the intrusion and shut down all impacted servers,” the firm continued in the letter. “RRD believes to the best of its knowledge that the intrusion has been removed, and we have worked with RRD to ensure it has implemented proper data protection safeguards to better protect information from subsequent incidents.”

On August 12, 2022 Plaintiff Robin Forslund filed a data breach class action lawsuit against RRD in an Illinois federal court, alleging negligence and breach of privacy.

“Despite learning of the Data Breach in December 2021, Defendant did not begin notifying Plaintiff and Class Members until on or around August 5, 2022,” Forslund alleges. 

The class action states the company found outside actors first accessed Defendant’s systems on November 29, 2021, upon investigation. Personal information can and likely will be sold on the dark web as a result of data breach, the class action claims. 

“Plaintiff and Class Members now face a lifetime risk of identity theft, which is heightened here by the loss of Social Security numbers — the gold standard for identity thieves,” according to the lawsuit.

The Advisor Group said it was not aware of any misuse of the information at the time the notice was sent. However, the organization encouraged clients to remain vigilant for incidents of fraud and identity theft. Over the next 12 to 24 months, individuals should review account statements, monitor free credit reports and promptly report any suspicious activity.

Additionally, the firm arranged a 24-month membership of Experian’s IdentityWorksSM for clients at no cost.

The announcement is similar to a data breach reported on May 12 by the Retirement Clearinghouse LLC, an industry leader in driving forward the automatic portability of retirement plans. The firm alerted more than 10,500 individuals that their personal data, including individual retirement account numbers, may have been compromised, according to public filings in the states where they are located.

The Advisor Group is currently in the process of simplifying its network of independent wealth management firms under one unified brand. The firm will announce its new brand and naming on June 21, it announced in a press release Tuesday.

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