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.
Renee Schroder works with clients on back office operations at Synergy Financial Group and supports in managing client relationships. She processes client information and manages ongoing client projects.
Baruch Lev is the Philip Bardes Professor of Accounting and Finance at New York University Stern School of Business, where he teaches courses in accounting, financial analysis and investor relations. Professor Lev has been with NYU over 20 years. His primary research areas of interest include financial statement and investment analyses; intangible assets/intellectual capital; management and valuation; capital markets; and mergers and acquisitions. He is the author of six books including "Intangibles: Management, Measurement, and Reporting," "Winning Investors Over" and, most recently, "The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers." Lev has published over 120 research studies in the leading accounting, finance and economic journals and received numerous awards and honorary doctorates. Before joining NYU, he held academic positions at the University of Chicago, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, where he was dean of the business school, and University of California at Berkeley (jointly appointed by the business and law schools). Lev's practical experience includes auditing, and investment banking. He was also a partner for over 15 years in a consulting firm.
Tara Pendleton is assurance director and audit quality director at BDO USA.
“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.

