Senate GOP readies $500B virus relief proposal

Washington — Senate Republican leaders are preparing a slimmeddown coronavirus relief package of roughly $500 billion that will include extended payments for unemployed people and smaller businesses, a GOP senator said Tuesday.

The measure also will include $10 billion for the embattled Postal Service, said one top GOP aide. The agency has become the focus of a campaign-season battle over whether it will have enough resources to handle an expected flood of mail-in ballots for this November’s presidential and congressional elections.

The fight between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over weathering the pandemic has become a critical battle that’s highlighted Trump’s troubled handling of an outbreak that has killed over 170,000 Americans, cost tens of millions of jobs and shuttered businesses in virtually every community.

Negotiations over a larger coronavirus relief bill are expected to resume after Labor Day between the White House and top congressional Democrats.

“I’m hoping that we actually can get back together, and in spite of the proximity to the election, put it aside and reach an agreement sometime soon,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday.

With Democrats demanding that bargainers piece together a wide-ranging measure, the trimmer package emerging from McConnell and other top Republicans seems to be an effort to show voters what the GOP would favor enacting quickly. With the party’s presidential convention next week, the measure could give Republican senators facing difficult reelection races this fall an opportunity to vote for a relief measure with popular provisions.

The GOP package was taking shape as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has summoned the House to return to Washington for a Saturday vote to provide $25 billion for the Postal Service and to block changes in the way it operates.