One more life vest

The House of Representatives Friday will approve another coronavirus relief bill. On its own, this one tops $3 trillion, joining earlier emergency packages that cumulatively approached $3 trillion. There seems no rational way to judge how much aid is necessary to help pull the nation out of a hole that feels bottomless.

We do know that without billions in assistance, and soon, cities and states will go belly-up, leading to mass layoffs of public servants atop the 36 million Americans who’ve already filed for unemployment benefits in the last eight weeks alone, erosion of services and spiraling misery. That must not happen.

The House, to its credit, would send nearly $1 trillion in aid to states and cities offsetting budgetary devastation from the shutting down of local economies. New

York could see as much as $67 billion – spread over two years to state, city and municipality coffers.

Get it here, and get it here fast. Other worthy expenditures include $200 billion for “hazard” pay for health and other essential workers; billions to reeling hospitals, whose bottom lines have been shredded; an extension of expanded unemployment benefits and another, more generous, round of direct payments — as much as $6,000 per household. Plus funding for the Post Office and elections, so that November can tilt heavily toward vote-bymail.

Senate Republicans already call it all a dead-on-arrival “liberal wish-list.” In normal circumstances, they’d have a point. In the current climate, even a mind-boggling $3 trillion package appears to be in the ballpark.