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.

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Max Effing is part of the global insurance practice at Simon-Kucher & Partners. He focuses on price/product design, salesforce effectiveness and digital sales processes. Within the scope of his projects he works primarily on the optimization of insurance portfolios, and modeling of innovative sales processes with a strong emphasis on value delivery, customer engagement, behavioral pricing and needs-based selling. Max pursued his studies in International Business at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He holds a master degree in finance and marketing.

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Roland Cloutier is senior vice president and chief security officer at ADP. He is responsible for cyber, information protection, risk, workforce protection, crisis management, and investigative security operations for ADP. With over 25 years of experience in the military, law enforcement, and commercial sector, he is an expert in corporate and enterprise security, cyber-defense programs, and business operations protection. Prior to ADP, he served as CSO of EMC, was a U.S. Air Force combat security specialist, and an aerospace protection and anti-terrorism Specialist for the Department of Defense. Roland has been honored with numerous industry recognitions, most recently the 2018 ISE Luminary Leadership Award. He is also the author of, “Becoming a Global Chief Security Executive Officer” where he shares his expertise on how to effectively plan for the future demands of leadership in global security.

Mike Hileman is sr. business development manager at Auto Insurance Specialists (AIS Insurance), a Mercury Casualty subsidiary.

“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.