GOP blocks Democrats’ bid for $2K payments Trump demanded

House Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempt to meet President Donald Trump’s demand to pay most Americans $2,000 to help weather the coronavirus pandemic.

House Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempt to meet President Donald Trump’s demand to pay most Americans $2,000 to help weather the coronavirus pandemic.

Republicans objected to the bill House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sought to pass by unanimous consent Thursday to replace the $600 payments in the latest pandemic relief legislation with the $2,000 payments.

CORONAVIRUS IMPACT: ADDITIONAL COVERAGE

Kaitlyn White is the human resource manager at Cognito Forms.

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Maryling Yu ("Mare") is vice president of marketing at CCC Intelligent Solutions, responsible for all aspects of marketing at the company, with a strategic focus on developing and retaining customers across the entire lifecycle and has over 20 years of marketing experience. Previously, she was the chief marketing officer for Backstop Solutions, a Chicago-based financial technology company. During her tenure, she played a key role in the company's growth, helping it double in size from 2016 to 2022 before its successful sale to ION Analytics. Mare specializes in B2B technology marketing and has also held senior level marketing positions at Sungard Availability Services and has consulted for many Silicon Valley-based technology companies.

“House and Senate Democrats have repeatedly fought for bigger checks for the American people, which House and Senate Republicans have repeatedly rejected — first, during our negotiations when they said that they would not go above $600 and now, with this act of callousness on the Floor,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Thursday.

Democrats will try again with a roll call vote on a new bill Dec. 28, when the House also plans a vote to override Trump’s veto on the National Defense Authorization Act. Since current government spending runs out that day — and funds for the rest of the fiscal year are included in the virus relief bill Trump criticized and hasn’t signed -- the House could also pass another stopgap measure to avert a partial government shutdown.

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A runner stands near the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Oliver Contreras/Bloomberg

Republicans on Thursday tried to seek unanimous consent on a measure to examine taxpayer money spent on foreign aid, but Democrats blocked that move. In his complaint Tuesday about Congress’s combined virus aid and government spending bill, Trump criticized federal resources spent on international programs, even though that spending was allocated as part of the bipartisan appropriations process.