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.
Nathan Horn-Mitchem is senior vice president and chief information security officer at Provident Bank.
Amanda LeClair is an analystat Forrester Research serving the needs of application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals. In this role, she helps clients understand the changing enterprise application services market and navigate the new engagement models of leading technology services firms. In her coverage, she explores business applications ecosystems, digital business transformation trends, and technology services spending patterns. Her research covers topics such as co-innovation, outcome-based services engagements, and the changing role of digital studios in services engagements.
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Prior to her current role as an analyst, Amanda was a researcher on Forrester's AD&D team. In that role, she contributed to Forrester's coverage of agile development and DevOps, led coverage on managing agile teams, and explored the intersection of design and customer experience with software development. She has extensive primary research experience, having served as research lead on Forrester Data's Global Business Technographics® Developer Survey and having conducted hundreds of research interviews with developers, VPs of technology, CIOs, and CTOs. In her role as a research associate, she contributed to Forrester's research on business technology transformation and technology market sizing.
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Amanda holds a B.A. in politics from Saint Anselm College.
Mark Van de Wiel is chief technology officer at HVR. Mark brings a strong background in data replication as well as real-time business intelligence and analytics to his role at HVR. Most recently, at Actian Corporation, Mark led a team of high performing solution architects. Prior to that, Mark developed extensions to Oracle’s GoldenGate replication product. Throughout his 15-plus year career, Mark has expanded his responsibilities from consultant to product management and business development. Mark holds an MSc in industrial engineering and management sciences from the Eindhoven University of Technology.
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.