Congress still stymied over COVID-19 relief as McConnell refuses to spend what the country needs

The House will break its recess and convene Saturday to pass H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act to inject the U.S. Postal Service with $25 billion emergency funds and restore the service's operations to pre-coronavirus and pre-Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's dismantling of it. So far, that's it. That's all the plan Congress has to do anything this month, while they remain on recess.

A large contingent of House Democrats is pushing House Speaker Pelosi to do more, to use this time to vote new relief measures. As of now, the only thing scheduled for Saturday is the postal bill. “We’ve done our job in the House, but we have to keep putting pressure on Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans to do their job,” Rep. Steven Horsford, a Nevada freshman said. He was echoed by fellow freshmen, California Rep. Gil Cisneros. “There is urgency for us to act to protect the Post Office,” he said, adding, “We do need to act, as well, on relief.” They've got a good argument. It's been over three months since the House passed the HEROES Act, which has been ignored by the Senate. Voting on any of its provisions providing direct assistance to people now, in the middle of this crisis, would put more pressure on Republicans already set back on their heels over the Postal Service debacle.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pretending that there's nothing to see here, telling reporters in Kentucky "The post office is not in trouble. We're going to make sure that they are able to deliver our ballots on time." And then adding "This is a non-existent problem, it's going to be taken care of." Hmmm … If there's no problem, then what's going to be taken care of? Maybe all those dead chicks showing up at farms in Susan Collins' home state of Maine?

At this point, McConnell is refusing to consider a stand-alone postal service bill, telling the Courier-Journal "I don't think we’ll pass, in the Senate, a postal-only bill." In McConnell speak that's "there's another House bill going to my trash can." He did say, however, that he wants to try to use it for leverage to get his stingy, inadequate coronavirus response bill back in play. That’s Paycheck Protection Program funding, his liability protections for schools and businesses so that people can’t sue them for any lax practices that expose people to the virus, a $300/week in unemployment insurance boost—half of what people had been getting before he shut the program down by refusing to continue it. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.) 

He told the Wall Street Journal that he wasn't going to bring anything to the floor next week, not wanting to have anything compete with the Republican National Convention. By all accounts, it's going to be such a disaster Republicans would be far better off doing something to distract from it.

The hearings Friday and Monday, and the USPS vote in the House Saturday could work as a catalyst for action on a larger bill, but as of right now, McConnell does not appear willing to bend.

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