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.
Alan Moore is co-founder and CEO of the advisor support platform XYPN. He also founded AdvicePay, a platform for processing payments and overseeing compliance of fee-for-service financial planning.
Tim Laehn is a director at Denim, a mobile and social media advertising automation platform for financial services companies.
Anthony Pumphrey, CFA, ASA, is vice president of Valuation Research Corporation. He has over 10 years of experience performing business enterprise valuations, purchase price allocations, impairment analyses, and the valuation of claims within complex capital structures for public and private companies under IRC 409a, ASC 350, ASC 360, ASC 718, ASC 805, ASC 820, and ASC 852. Mr. Pumphrey has presented on financial reporting at the American Institute of CPAs' Forensic & Valuation Services Conference and has guest lectured on valuation topics at Drexel University. Mr. Pumphrey holds a bachelor of business administration (BBA) degree in finance and real estate from Temple University. He also holds the designations of chartered financial analyst (CFA) and accredited senior appraiser (ASA), issued by the CFA Institute and the American Society of Appraisers, respectively.
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.