GOP blocks Democrats’ bid for $2K payments Trump demanded

House Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempt to meet President Donald Trump’s demand to pay most Americans $2,000 to help weather the coronavirus pandemic.

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.

CORONAVIRUS IMPACT: ADDITIONAL COVERAGE

Justin Berman is a Technical Director at Skybox Security. Berman is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Cloud Security Professional with a Certified Specialty in AWS Security with over 20 years of experience.
Justin has a passion for IT security beyond the realm of his assigned roles and responsibilities. He is knowledgeable across a great number of security disciplines.

As the General Manager of Dayforce Wallet & Consumer Services at Ceridian, Seth Ross brings nearly 20 years' of experience to oversee the development, launch, and implementation of Dayforce Wallet, Ceridian's market-leading pay solution that enables employees to access their earned wages at any time.

Prior to joining Ceridian, Ross led Green Dot Corporation's Banking-as-a-Service business, where he helped build new, embedded financial services businesses with partners like Apple, Uber, Intuit, Stash and others. Before that, he led the global airline partnerships strategy for American Express and helped launch Amex Advance, a division focused on data commercialization. 

Ross holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Ivey Business School at Western University in London, Ontario, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Joe Bonner is the founder of J. Bonner Consulting and a three-time bank CEO.

“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.

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A runner stands near the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Oliver Contreras/Bloomberg

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.