House Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempt to meet President Donald Trump’s demand to pay most Americans $2,000 to help weather the coronavirus pandemic.
Republicans objected to the bill House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sought to pass by unanimous consent Thursday to replace the $600 payments in the latest pandemic relief legislation with the $2,000 payments.
Brett Settles is the director of human resources for PKF O’Connor Davies, one of the largest CPA firms in the New York Metropolitan area. Brett is also the founder of PKF O’Connor Davies TalentConnect which offers full-cycle recruiting services.
Michael Walsh is the CEO of Cariloop, which provides a human-powered Caregiver Support Platform to help working caregivers and families plan for and manage the care of their loved ones. The Platform pairs caregivers with a dedicated, experienced Care Coach who guides families through the many decisions they make over the length of their caregiving journey, all while collaborating on a digital care portal that helps families securely communicate across all their devices and store important health, financial and legal documents.
Srinivasan Pandurangan is senior manager of business consulting at Virtusa.
“House and Senate Democrats have repeatedly fought for bigger checks for the American people, which House and Senate Republicans have repeatedly rejected — first, during our negotiations when they said that they would not go above $600 and now, with this act of callousness on the Floor,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Thursday.
Democrats will try again with a roll call vote on a new bill Dec. 28, when the House also plans a vote to override Trump’s veto on the National Defense Authorization Act. Since current government spending runs out that day — and funds for the rest of the fiscal year are included in the virus relief bill Trump criticized and hasn’t signed -- the House could also pass another stopgap measure to avert a partial government shutdown.
Republicans on Thursday tried to seek unanimous consent on a measure to examine taxpayer money spent on foreign aid, but Democrats blocked that move. In his complaint Tuesday about Congress’s combined virus aid and government spending bill, Trump criticized federal resources spent on international programs, even though that spending was allocated as part of the bipartisan appropriations process.