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.
Petar Tomov is a director in Opportune LLP’s Financial Instruments Group. Combined with his time as a manager at KPMG, he has over 10 years of experience focusing on the valuation of stock-based compensation, debt and equity instruments, contingent consideration and intangible assets. He holds a BS in Mathematics and an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Matt Smith is managing director in Opportune LLP’s Financial Instruments Group. He assists companies with their accounting for complex financial instruments under both U.S. GAAP and IFRS. With 15 years of client service experience at Opportune and EY, Matt has gained extensive knowledge and expertise in derivative valuation and hedge accounting, stock-based compensation, debt, and equity financing activities, embedded derivative assessments, Dodd-Frank compliance and SEC reporting. He has an undergraduate degree in accounting from Oral Roberts University and is a member of the American Institute of CPAs.
Peter Doumas is the vice president of national accounts at Progyny.
“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.