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.
It’s an odd, and unwelcome, test of new retail technology that allows consumers to shop with minimal interaction with others.
Dan Davis serves as Director, IoT and Emerging Markets for Insurance. Dan has been with LexisNexis Risk Solutions since 2016, where he leads the creation of the value proposition, strategy and positioning for the LexisNexis IoT platform across Life, Home and Commercial. His insurance experience includes leadership roles in claims, business development and strategic technology initiatives in the P&C market. Dan has also served LexisNexis through strategic partnership management in the emerging markets and software platform space. Dan has a bachelor’s degree in Business from Louisiana State University.
David Fanger is a senior vice president in the financial institutions group at Moody's Investors Service.
“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.