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.
People who order groceries for delivery may be using digital payments or a plastic card to pay for their food, but the person picking up the groceries may be making a separate payment at the point of pickup — and in the process, influencing the global shift toward contactless payments.
Roger Brown is head of tax & regulatory affairs for Lukka. He has more than 27 years of experience as an international tax and financial products lawyer. He spent a decade in the national office of the IRS writing regulations and other guidance and a similar period as a partner in Ernst & Young’s financial institutions & products office. After being tasked to be lead international tax partner on a number of EY’s largest banking, insurance and other capital markets clients — often bridging the intersection of tax and capital markets regulations — he was one of EY’s leaders in the fintech and blockchain space prior to joining Lukka.
Even digitally savvy organizations face a vexing dilemma when sending emergency funds: The neediest recipients often have little other option than to receive paper checks.
“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.