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.
Joseph Phillips heads the Credit and Compliance teams within Mphasis Digital Risk's Due Diligence department.
Kristy LaRose is the founder and CEO of Impact Strategies LLC. She is a business development expert, specializing in growth strategies for professional services firms. Her niche lies in crafting strategic action plans, assisting clients with pre-planning, research, meeting scheduling, and follow-up to achieve outstanding results through conference participation.
Bart Peluso III is Vice President of Marketing at KnowledgeLake. He joined the company from Microsoft where he introduced & led 'Hyperautomation' across the company's 15 global regions. Prior to Microsoft, Bart was the Global Head of Product Marketing for Blue Prism, where he drove the creation of the RPA Market along with Gartner's RPA Magic Quadrant. Bart has managed Product Marketing Strategy, Competitive Intelligence, Technical Alliance Partnerships (TAP) & Customer Advisory Groups in the 'Automation / Document Processing space since 2010. He led Product Marketing for disruptive new technologies at Cisco, Dell & the revolutionary start-up Mesh Networks.
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.