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US President Donald Trump’s push for bigger $ 2,000 COVID-19 relief checks stalled in the Senate on Tuesday when Republicans blocked a snap vote proposed by Democrats and split within their own. ranks over whether to boost spending or challenge the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stymied Trump’s request to increase checks of $ 600 for millions of Americans even as political pressure mounted.
A growing number of Republicans, including two senators in Georgia’s Jan. 5 runoff elections, said they would support the most.
Most Republican senators oppose the additional COVID-19 spending, which would cost the US government $ 484 billion, even if they are also wary of opposing Trump, who repeated his demand in a tweet: “¡ $ 2,000 for our great people, not $ 600! “
Following Trump’s lead, Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio, among the party’s potential presidential hopefuls in 2024, are pushing for the $ 2,000 checks. “We have the votes. Let’s vote today, ”Hawley tweeted.
We have the votes. Let’s vote today https://t.co/woFBHPMSjz
– Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 29, 2020
Trying to come up with a way out of the political bind, McConnell offered to combine the president’s demand for bigger controls with two proposals that Trump wants to be nothing to Democrats: content restrictions on tech companies like Facebook or Twitter and the establishment of a commission. to review Trump’s allegations of fraud in the presidential election.
“Senator McConnell knows how to make $ 2,000 survivors checks come true and he knows how to kill them,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
McConnell is “loading the House-passed bipartisan measure” that provides the $ 2,000 checks “with unrelated partisan provisions that will do absolutely nothing to help struggling families across the country,” Schumer said.
The standoff has sent Congress into a chaotic end-of-year session just days before new lawmakers take office for the new year. And it’s preventing action on another priority: overriding Trump’s veto on a broad annual defense policy bill.
The president’s last-minute push for tighter controls divides Republicans, who are split between those who align with Trump’s populist instincts and those who adhere to what had been more traditional conservative views against government spending. . Congress had agreed to smaller payments of $ 600 in a compromise on the big year-end relief bill that Trump reluctantly signed.
Now, liberal senators led by Bernie Sanders from Vermont who support emergency aid are blocking action on the defense bill until Trump’s $ 2,000 demand can be voted on for most Americans. “The working class of this country faces more economic despair today than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s,” Sanders said in a Senate statement. “Working families need help now.”
Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer of New York walks on Capitol Hill in Washington [File: Susan Walsh/AP Photo]
The Republican lockdown is causing confusion for some as the virus crisis worsens and Trump amplifies his unexpected demands.
Georgia’s two Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler announced Tuesday that they support Trump’s plan for tighter controls as they face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the second-round elections that will determine which party controls the Senate.
“I am delighted to support the president,” Perdue said on Fox News. Loeffler said in an interview on Fox that she too supports reinforced relief checks.
Trump repeated his demand in a tweet before Tuesday’s Senate session: “$ 2,000 for our great people, not $ 600!” Other Republicans criticized the larger checks saying the price tag of nearly $ 484 billion was too high, that the relief is not aimed at those in need, and Washington has already sent large sums of COVID-19 aid. “We have spent $ 4 billion on this problem.” said Republican Senator John Cornyn.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted Monday night to approve Trump’s request for $ 2,000 checks in a surprising turn of events. Just days earlier, during a brief Christmas Eve session, Republicans had blocked Trump’s sudden demand for bigger checks as he defiantly refused to sign the broader COVID-19 relief and year-end funding bill.
Trump spent days fuming from his private club in Florida, where he spends the holidays and millions of Americans saw unemployment assistance drop as the nation risked a federal government shutdown.
Economists said a check for $ 600 will help, but that it is a far cry from the purchasing power that a check for $ 2,000 would provide the economy. “It will make a big difference if it’s $ 600 versus $ 2,000,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s.
Followed by a staff member with a bag, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leaves the Capitol for the day. [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]
The outlook now, however, is that McConnell will advance votes for both the House-passed measure backing Trump’s $ 2,000 checks and his own new version linking it to tech company reforms and the overhaul of the presidential elections. That would be a process that is likely to ensure that none of the bills pass.
Time is running out to solve the problem. A new Congress is scheduled to be sworn in on Sunday. The $ 600 checks will be delivered, along with other aid, among the largest rescue packages of their kind.
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