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.
Travis Topp, managing director at Stout, advises public and private companies on complex accounting and financial reporting matters, including capital transactions, IPOs, M&A, revenue recognition and new accounting standards. He founded Topp Advisory in 2021, where he built a practice focused on IPO readiness, SEC reporting and strategic transactions across industries such as technology, SaaS, consumer products, retail, and manufacturing. Previously, he held leadership roles at CNM LLP and KPMG, specializing in accounting and transaction advisory.
Emilio Cividanes is counsel for Responsible Data Alliance.
Denelle Dixon is CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation, a nonprofit organization supporting the development of open-source blockchain infrastructure. Previously, she served as chief operating officer of Mozilla.
“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.