August 19, 2020

Bloomberg: Post Office Fight May Clear Way to Restart Stimulus Negotiations

The political fight over the post office may create an opening for resuming stalled negotiations on a virus relief bill as Democratic and Republican leaders hint at potential compromises and lawmakers agitate for action.

President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman said Wednesday that the administration was willing to look at $25 billion in additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service. That’s the amount Democrats put in their original stimulus plan and are including in post office legislation they expect to pass in the House on Saturday.

The White House willingness was accompanied by conditions -- agreement to GOP terms for provisions such as stimulus checks and small business aid.

“We’re certainly open to looking at the $25 billion, but we want included in there relief for the American people that thus far Speaker Pelosi has been entirely uninterested in,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a briefing, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Meanwhile, more than half the Democrats in the House have signed on to a letter urging Pelosi to use Saturday’s session for a vote on a measure to revive the $600 per week supplemental unemployment insurance that expired at the end of July. The 117 lawmakers on the letter organized by the moderate New Democrat Coalition include some progressives such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Pelosi has previously rejected any move to pass parts of the Democratic relief plan separately. Still, she’s doing just that with legislation that would also bar the Postal Service from making any cutbacks before the November election, which is expected to draw a flood of mail-in ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic. A senior Democratic aide said the House won’t take up the unemployment aid during Saturday’s session.

Both sides remain far apart on what they want out of a relief bill.

The standoff has endured since talks among Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows broke off Aug. 7. While the stock market has touched record highs, Federal Reserve officials, economists, governors and mayors have been warning that, with much of the previous stimulus exhausted, the risk to the economy grows every day that goes by without a deal.

Senate Republicans offered their own $1 trillion plan at the end of July. During negotiations, Pelosi and Schumer said they had offered to cut their $3.5 trillion proposal by $1 trillion if the White House and GOP would raise their by the same amount. They were rebuffed.

The Trump administration sees a chance for Republicans and Democrats to agree on a smaller round of pandemic relief totaling $500 billion that would omit the biggest areas of disagreement, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday night.

The official, who discussed the matter on the condition of anonymity, said that both parties might be able to reach an accord on issues like financial help for the Postal Service, aid to schools and more money for businesses to keep their workers employed.

Senate Republicans have circulated a draft of their own scaled-back stimulus bill, which would fund a $300 per week enhanced unemployment benefit through December, money for small business aid, and protection for employers against lawsuits stemming from Covid-19 infections. The draft, obtained by Bloomberg, would convert a previous $10 billion Postal Service loan to a grant.

The slimmed-down version of the $1 trillion legislation Republican senators introduced in late July could become an amendment to a House postal funding bill.

That is far short of what Democrats want.

Pelosi suggested Tuesday that Democrats had flexibility on their offer because they could come back and pass more stimulus in January, after an election in which they have a shot at taking the White House and gaining control of the Senate as well as expanding their House majority.

“We’re willing to cut our bill in half to meet the needs right now,” she said Tuesday at a Politico Playbook event. “We’ll take it up again in January.”

Pelosi’s spokesman Drew Hammill later said that she was referring to previous offers to meet Republicans “halfway, not cutting our bill in half.”

Mnuchin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Pelosi’s decision to break out $25 billion in funding for the Postal Service from the original Democratic relief plan could provide an opening for talks.

In an interview with the Louisville Courier Journal Tuesday McConnell said that the return of the House for the post office vote “could open the opportunity for discussion about something smaller than what the speaker and the Democratic Senate leader were insisting on at the point of impasse.”

But he said he has no plan to bring senators back from break to vote on any legislation.

By: Erik Wasson and Saleha Mohsin
Source: Bloomberg Government

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