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.
Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr. is president and CEO of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
Michael Simon is a consultant for ABBYY and the principal of Seventh Samurai, an e-Discovery and information governance expert consulting firm. Michael is a legal technology thought leader, having made over 100 presentations and written dozens of articles on e-Discovery and legal technology topics, including a book on Internet Law in 2002. He received his J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and his B.A. cum laude from Tufts University.
Andrew Pery is a marketing executive at ABBYY, a global leader in content IQ and AI technologies and solutions. He has over 25 years of experience in the high technology sector focusing on content management and business process automation. Andrew holds a Master of Law degree with Distinction from Northwestern University, is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/C) and a Certified Information Professional (CIP/AIIM).
“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.