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.
Mark Holmes is CEO of Waymark Tech.
Jim Weiss is manager and assistant actuary in the Personal Automobile Actuarial Division at Insurance Services Office (ISO), a Verisk Analytics Company. His primary responsibilities include product development and filing strategy for personal auto predictive modeling initiatives, with a focus on vehicle rating and usage-based insurance (UBI). Weiss was lead actuary on the multi-state filing of both of ISO's telematics-based rating plans, and is a frequent presenter on UBI and personal lines analytical topics. He is co-author of "Beginner's Roadmap to Working with Driving Behavior Data," which was awarded the 2012 Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Management Data and Information Prize, and author of "Five Simple Rules to Leverage Four Generations of Talent," which placed first in the 2013 Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) Society Diversity Essay Contest. Weiss is a Fellow of the CAS, a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and a CPCU.
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.