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.
Perkinson is a partner at Kilpatrick Townsend and focuses his practice on employee benefits and executive compensation.
Stember is a partner at Kilpatrick Townsend and concentrates his practice on counseling clients on the tax and related aspects of health and welfare benefits, flexible compensation, fringe benefits, executive compensation, and qualified retirement plans.
Wolfgang Koester is the CEO and co-founder of FiREapps. He has more than 30 years of extensive experience in currency markets and working with numerous global Fortune 1000 companies and government entities. Prior to co-founding FiREapps, he served as President of GFTA Trendanalysen Inc., a quantitative currency management company. Koester has been named as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance” by Treasury & Risk magazine and is regularly included in Global Finance’s annual “Who’s Who in Foreign Exchange.” He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic events and his work has appeared in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Treasury & Risk and AFP Exchange among other industry publications. He is a regular commentator on CNN, CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg.
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.