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.
Warner Johnston serves as the CEO of the USA for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Before ACCA, Warner served as vice president of statewide public affairs at Empire State Development, New York State’s lead economic development agency, where he worked closely with the Governor's Office on statewide messaging and the coordination of communications strategy while conceiving and developing New York State's business portal, New York First. His prior experience includes serving as director of public affairs at New York City's Parks Department and heading communications at the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services. Warner also served as deputy press secretary under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani during 9/11.
Stacia Almquist is vice president of dental and vision for Sun Life Financial U.S.
Chris serves Infrastructure & Operations professionals as they face the unique opportunities and challenges of migrating business technology into modern, software-defined environments. He specializes in treating elements of infrastructure systems like developers treat their apps: individual pieces of code that can be dynamically shaped and remolded to handle changing business needs at will. Chris has a special passion for abstraction, automation, DevOps, and how I&O professionals and their organizational culture can evolve and capitalize on a flexible and exciting future.
Previous Work Experience
Chris comes to Forrester with 15 years of experience in infrastructure and process excellence. For the previous eight years, he worked with New York Life, designing and managing financial systems in its Investments group; managing the Investments service desk; and finally, as a key team member, implementing a new operating model for the technology organization as a whole. Prior to this, he managed infrastructure in advertising and public relations at Interpublic and the Public Relations Society of America, respectively.
Education
Chris holds a Master of Business Administration in information systems from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science and writing from Sarah Lawrence College.
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.