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Pressure is building for Congress to pass legislation that would curtail lawmakers’ ability to speculate on the stock market, the Associated Press reported. Trading in Congress has long been criticized by government watchdogs, who say the access to nonpublic information creates a temptation for lawmakers to prioritize their own finances over the public good. But public anger has mounted since the first tremors of the pandemic, when some lawmakers were caught buying and selling millions of dollars worth of stock after being warned about the coming disruption from the virus. The pandemic’s arrival tanked markets and caught many Americans by surprise. Now, with November elections fast approaching and members of both parties embracing reform, congressional leaders are getting on the bandwagon, expressing their willingness to toughen the rules. After a spate of controversies over suspiciously timed trades and undisclosed transactions, few lawmakers are defending the status quo, raising hopes that a significant ethics package is within reach. “This isn’t going to solve all of America’s problems. But it’s a substantive reform that three-fourths of the country supports,” said Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is sponsoring a bill that would require lawmakers and their spouses to sell off stocks or place such assets in a blind trust. The Georgia Democrat beat Republican Sen. David Perdue last year in a race that turned largely on Perdue’s pandemic-era stock trading.

The House on Tuesday advanced a major financial overhaul of the ailing U.S. Postal Service, relieving it of tens of billions of dollars in liabilities that agency leaders said prevented it from modernizing and providing efficient service, the Washington Post reported. The bill, which passed 342-92, marks a major breakthrough for the mail agency and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who made the legislation the centerpiece of his 10-year postal restructuring plan. The Postal Service has implored Congress to help fix its balance sheet for nearly 15 years, and agency leaders are cautiously optimistic about prospects for the Postal Service Reform Act in the Senate. It has 27 co-sponsors in the upper chamber, including 14 Republicans, sufficient support to defeat a potential filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that the chamber would vote on the legislation by the end of next week, citing its bipartisan popularity. The Postal Service is required to prepay its retirees’ health-care costs, a mandate instituted in 2006 when mail volume was steady and the agency was profitable. But decades of falling mail use have turned it into a perpetual financial loser, and the pre-funding requirement has accounted for $152.8 billion of its $206.4 billion in liabilities. Tuesday’s legislation, advanced by leaders of both parties, wipes clean $57 billion of that amount, and will save the agency another $50 billion over the next decade. The bill installs new timely delivery transparency requirements for the Postal Service, which has struggled with on-time service since DeJoy took office, and allows the agency to contract with local, state and Indigenous governments to offer basic nonpostal services, such as hunting and fishing licenses.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday introduced legislation to temporarily fund federal government programs through March 11 and avoid partial agency shutdowns on Feb. 18 when existing funds expire, Reuters reported. The move would give Democratic and Republican negotiators more time to work out funding for the remainder of the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30, House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro said in a statement. The Democratic-controlled House was expected to vote sometime this week on the new temporary funding bill. If passed, it would be the third such measure since the fiscal year that began last Oct. 1. The Senate would then have to approve the measure and send it to Democratic President Joe Biden for signing into law before the midnight Feb. 18 deadline. Democrats and Republicans have been at odds for months over spending priorities in a massive appropriations bill with a price tag that is expected to be around $1.5 trillion.

With the ink barely dry on a vote in the state Senate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed S.B. 418, according to a release from the office of State Sen. John Laird, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported. S.B. 418, authored by Laird, creates the Pajaro Valley Health Care District. The district is first in line to purchase the financially troubled Watsonville Community Hospital. Three weeks ago, Laird “gut and amended” Senate Bill 418 to add language that would create the Pajaro Valley Healthcare District. In a matter of weeks, Laird moved this legislation through the full legislative process. Assemblymembers Robert Rivas and Mark Stone, as well as Sen. Anna Caballero also co-authored S.B. 418. In response to the current owners of the Watsonville Community Hospital filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy, issuing WARN Act notices to employees, and announcing the hospital’s January closure, Laird authored legislation to ensure the hospital doors remain open. In late November, Watsonville Community Hospital CEO Steven Salyer announced that the hospital would be sold or shuttered by March. Pajaro Valley Healthcare District Project leader and former Santa Cruz County health official Mimi Hall is working with the county, Watsonville and others to build financial backing for the acquisition and future operation of the hospital as it goes through chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. In late January, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors approved $5 million toward the purchase and the operation of the hospital. Those funds are contingent on the district’s successful bid for the hospital. All total, the county has earmarked $5.5 million, according to a county release.

U.S. regulators should crack down on banks that partner with fintechs to charge interest rates that would be illegal in the lenders’ home states, a coalition of advocacy groups said, Bloomberg News reported. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other U.S. agencies need to stop banks they oversee from “engaging in high-cost predatory lending” through their work with financial-technology firms, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Consumer Reports, the NAACP, the Center for Responsible Lending and other groups said in a letter Friday. “Rent-a-bank schemes have flourished at FDIC banks in the past few years and it is time for that to come to an end,” the coalition said in the letter to the heads of the FDIC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. “The FDIC has the tools that it needs to prevent its banks from fronting for predatory lenders that are evading state law and making grossly high-cost installment loans and lines of credit” with annual percentage rates as high as 225%.

Democrats in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday pushed for fast action to fund government programs through September and avert a looming partial shutdown for lack of funds, but they first needed a sign from Republicans of a willingness to negotiate, Reuters reported. Money runs out on Feb. 18 for Washington to fund day-to-day programs. Failure to resolve a months-long gridlock could trigger partial government shutdowns that could have an impact on military and diplomatic operations, the smooth scheduling of airline flights, operation of national parks, some healthcare programs and other activities. With a little more than two weeks till its next deadline, Congress could be forced to pass a stop-gap funding bill to keep government running during negotiations. Two such measures were enacted last year — leaving spending levels in line with what they had been during Republican Donald Trump's presidency. The last time government workers were furloughed resulted in a record-long shutdown lasting from Dec. 22, 2018 to Jan. 25, 2019, as Trump fought with Congress over funding for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Democrats have advanced legislation that would spend a little over $1.5 trillion on "discretionary" programs, more than an 8% increase over the previous fiscal year.

Congress is cooking up another relief bill for small business, but it could quickly expand beyond just small business to balloon in size, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial. The $1.9 trillion bill passed last March included $50 billion for small businesses, including $28.6 billion in grants for restaurants, but this money has been depleted. Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin and Mississippi’s Roger Wicker are cobbling together another relief bill for restaurants. “The restaurant money is a fairness issue. Some restaurants got it and others did not,” Mr. Cardin said. Twenty-eight mayors recently sent a letter imploring Congress to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund from the March spending bill. They say 86% of independent restaurants and bars that didn’t receive grants “risk permanently closing,” and 177,000 applicants have been denied relief. The editorial sympathizes with restaurants, which are also having to deal with rising prices and worker shortages. Some have faced a drop-off in business during Covid surges as customers stay home. Yet the commentary asserts that restaurants in certain states seem to be struggling much more in part because of population flight during the pandemic. Data from the website OpenTable shows restaurant reservations were up 19% in Florida, 14% in South Carolina and 9% in Arizona on Jan. 3 compared to the same date in 2019. Reservations were down 78% in Maryland, 52% in New York and 45% in Illinois. Treasury has allowed states and localities to use the $350 billion in budget aid from the March bill to help struggling households, small businesses and industries. States and localities are swimming in revenue, so they can assist their own restaurants, though some like New York have preferred to pay off public unions and grow government programs instead. Congress could also repurpose money that states and localities haven’t spent to replenish the restaurant fund or hospitals, but there’s no need to appropriate new funds, the editorial argues. It has already spent nearly $6 trillion on Covid relief. Read more.(Subscription required.)

*The views expressed in this commentary are from the author/publication cited, are meant for informative purposes only, and are not an official position of ABI.