Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday closed off chances that the Senate would pass anytime soon a House bill that would give most Americans $2,000 stimulus payments.
The Kentucky Republican said the House legislation, approved in a bipartisan vote Monday, “has no realistic path” to quick passage in the Senate and that it falls short of the demands of President Donald Trump. He again blocked an attempt by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to adopt the House bill to increase the payments to $2,000 from the $600 by unanimous consent.
Keith Smith is CEO of Payability.
Fouad Khalil is head of compliance at SecurityScorecard, Inc.
As Strategic Research Actuary for RGA’s Global Research and Data Analytics (GRDA) team, Julianne Callaway researches emerging areas of interest to the insurance industry. Her insights on wellness, wearable technology, genetics, and other strategic research initiatives are shared with clients in presentations, white papers and articles.
Julianne joined RGA in 2013 as an Assistant Actuary in GRDA, where she oversaw research development for the department. Later Julianne was part of RGAx, the wholly-owned innovation incubator subsidiary of Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated, for two years where she developed economic models for business concepts and market intelligence in support of innovative business initiatives.
Prior to joining RGA, Julianne spent nine years with Towers Watson, where she was a Senior Actuarial Analyst, responsible for loss reserving for several lines of business, establishing funding amounts for self-insurance funds, developing predictive models, and developing methods to estimate asbestos liabilities for corporations and insurers. She began her actuarial career at American Family Insurance, where she priced business lines insurance and was responsible for rate adequacy in several states.
Julianne has Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and Master of Arts (M.A.) degrees, both in economics, from the University of Missouri – Columbia. She is a Fellow in the Society of Actuaries (FSA), an Associate in the Casualty Actuarial Society (ACAS), and Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA). A prolific author, she has written and published several articles and white papers on a broad range of insurance topics. She is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and is currently a member of the Society of Actuaries’ General Insurance Research
The Senate instead will work on combining the stimulus payments with measures on election integrity and rolling back social media liability protections, he said. That responds to all three issues Trump has said he wants, but a bill combining them likely will alienate enough senators in both parties to leave prospects for bigger stimulus payments dead in the Senate.
“The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of the Democrats’ rich friends who don’t need the help,” McConnell said. The House bill would raise the income cutoff to receive a payment.
The clash over the payments also is entangling another piece of year-end business in the Senate — a vote to override Trump’s veto of a crucial $740.5 billion defense policy bill. Senators Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey said they will continue to delay the defense legislation vote unless McConnell relents and allows a vote on a standalone bill on the bigger stimulus checks.
“We are saying to Mitch McConnell, to allow the United States Senate to do what it’s supposed to do, and that is the vote,” Sanders told reporters. “The House passed the bill, it’s over here right now. Do you want to vote against it? Then vote against it.”
Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey later blocked an attempt by Sanders to call up the House bill for a roll call vote.