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.
Lowell M. Smith Jr. is chief compliance officer and co-founder of IRALOGIX.
His previous experience includes working for the ERISA enforcement agency in the U.S. Department of Labor. He created a TPA compliance practice and consulted on products, procedures and technology for clients of Universal Pensions, now Ascensus. He is a published author and a frequent speaker at industry conferences.
Paul Tyler is Head of Enterprise Marketing and Marketing Innovation at Zinnia, previously serving as CMO at Nassau Financial Group where he led branding strategy, digital initiatives, and built direct-to-consumer channels for insurance products. With deep expertise in financial services marketing and digital transformation, Paul brings a practical perspective on how advisory firms can leverage technology to enhance client engagement while maintaining the human connection that's essential in financial services.
Gordon Gray is the executive director of the Pinpoint Policy Institute. Prior to launching Pinpoint, Gordon served as the vice president for economic policy at the American Action Forum, where his portfolio included the federal budget, taxes, the macroeconomic outlook and general economic policy matters.
“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.
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.