The influence industry’s 2020 started off strong financially, but the rest of the year presents challenges as the global pandemic and economic downturn continue and a presidential election looms.

Two packages of regulations on the cap on companies’ ability to turn their loan interest payments into tax breaks left the White House after a second review, bringing them once again closer to public release.

“We are concerned that, without additional efforts from the Fed and Treasury, giant corporations will reap all the benefits of this recovery while cities and states are left behind,” senators write in letter to Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she would delay or even cancel the chamber’s planned summer break if it helps to speed up talks and passage of the next coronavirus relief package.

(Editor’s note: This is the third in our “Stories of Summer” exploring the impact of Covid-19 on the global economy, telling the larger story of a once-in-a-multi-generational crisis through the voices of individuals and small businesses. For more, see {NI TICTOC BLC } on the Bloomberg terminal, visit @QuickTake on Twitter and see the YouTube playlist.)

U.S. manufacturers are pushing lawmakers to reverse a provision in the 2017 tax law that will force companies to write down research and development expenditures starting in 2022.

The U.S. posted its worst-ever budget deficit in June as federal government spending more than tripled from a year earlier in a bid to mitigate the economic destruction caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

In about two weeks millions of Americans could lose a crucial economic lifeline of this pandemic: $600 a week in extra federal unemployment benefits.

Senate Republicans will finish their own plan for a new round of pandemic relief as early as next week and only then will open negotiations with Democrats as the last stimulus begins running dry and a resurgence of Covid-19 cases threatens a deeper recession.