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.
Tal Zackon is the CEO and co-founder of TRES, a Web3 financial data platform. TRES was founded in 2022 and is backed by some of the most respected names in Web3, including Circle, Blockdaemon, Moonpay, Alchemy, angels from Fireblocks and Chainalysis, and more.
Laurent Descout, CEO and co-founder of Neo, is a serial fintech entrepreneur and investor. Previously he has been financial advisor in asset-structured finance for more than 10 years.
Mathias Imbach is the co-founder and group CEO of Sygnum. Prior to Sygnum, he was general manager at RNT Associates, where he led multiple venture capital and private equity investments and participated in blockchain and DLT-related equity deals globally. Mathias started his career at Bain & Company where he led advisory projects for private equity funds, family offices and technology companies. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of St. Gallen and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics, or LSE.
“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.