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.
Joel Wukelic is a director in the M&A tax services practice of the transaction advisory group of Stout, advising private equity firms as well as public and private companies throughout the M&A transaction lifecycle. He is a transactional attorney and CPA with over nine years of experience providing domestic and cross-border tax due diligence and tax structuring services to both private equity and strategic clients.
James Lewis is a vice president in the M&A tax services practice of the transaction advisory group of Stout. He has over four years of experience providing domestic and cross-border tax due diligence and tax structuring services to both private equity and strategic clients.
Gani Laguisma has more than 30 years of accounting, auditing, and consulting experience with EY in the U.S. and abroad, and was a former assurance and audit partner with OUM & Co. LLP. He is the co-founder and CEO of Scrubbed, a full-service outsourced provider serving the accounting, finance, and assurance needs of clients across the globe. He graduated with distinction from the University of the East-Manila and earned his MBA from the Asian Institute of Management – Manila in the Philippines.
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.