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.
Anne-Lise Dorry is the senior director of corporate finance products at the Tax and Accounting business of Thomson Reuters. She is a CPA in the State of New York and holds the equivalent certification in France. She has over 23 years of accounting and auditing experience. Dorry started her career at one of the Big Four accounting firms, first in France, then in New York. She has served clients that prepared financial statements in accordance with US GAAP, IFRS, French GAAP, and statutory accounting principles. Her main areas of expertise include IFRS conversions, business combinations and financing transactions, foreign exchange, international accounting, fair value measurements, and investments. In 2018, she received industry recognition when winning a Gold Award for Female Employee of the Year at the 15th Annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Dorry is a graduate from HEC, School of Management (in France).
Taylor Nicole Rogers is a reporter at Employee Benefit News and Employee Benefit Adviser.
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.