Senate again rejects vote on $2K checks
Trump, Democrats want increase; Senate leader says no.
Senate Majority WASHINGTON — Leader Mitch McConnell shut the door Wednesday on President Donald Trump’s push for $2,000 COVID-19 relief checks, declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid as he blocked another attempt by Democrats to force a vote.
The GOP leader made clear he is unwilling to budge, despite political pressure from Trump and even some fellow Republican senators who demanded a vote. Trump wants the recently approved $600 in aid increased threefold. But McConnell dismissed the idea of bigger “survival checks,” saying the money would go to plenty of American households that don’t need it.
McConnell’s refusal to act means the additional relief Trump and Senate Democrats want is all but dead.
“We just approved almost a trillion dollars in aid a few days ago,” McConnell said, referring to the year-end package Trump signed into law.
McConnell added, “if specific, struggling households still need more help,” the Senate will consider “smart targetedaid. Notanother firehose of borrowed money.”
The showdown between the outgoing president and his own Republican Party over the $2,000 checks has thrown Congress into a chaotic year-end session just days before new lawmakers are set to be sworn into office.
It’s one last standoff, together with the override ofTrump’svetoofasweeping defense bill, that will punctuate the president’s final days and deepen the GOP’s divide between its newwing of Trump-styled populists andwhat had been mainstay conservative views against government spending.
Trump has been criticizing the GOP leaders, and tweeted, “$2000 ASAP!”
For a second day in a row, Senate Democratic leader ChuckSchumertried toforce a voteonthe billapprovedby theHouse meeting Trump’s demand for the $2,000 checks.
“It’s pretty simple: the best way to help Ohio workers and families is to put more money in their pockets – not in the bank accounts of the largest corporations and the biggest banks, hoping it will trickle down. We need to invest directly in the people who make this country work,” U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Wednesday.
MostGOPsenatorsseemed toaccept the inaction evenas a growing number ofRepublicans, including two senators in runoff elections on Jan. 5 in Georgia, agree with Trump’s demand.
Congresssettledonsmaller $600 payments in a compromise over the big, year-end relief bill Trump reluctantly signed into law. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said those checks will begin to go out Wednesday.
With the Georgia Senate
runoff elections days away, leadingRepublicanswarned that theGOP’s refusal to provide more aid as the virus worsens could jeopardize the outcome.
“The Senate Republicans risk throwing away two seats and control of the Senate,” said Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, on Fox News. He called on Senate Republicans to “get a grip and not try to play cute parliamentary games with the president’s $2,000 payment.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “These Republicans in the Senate seem to have an endless tolerance for other people’s sadness.”
Saying little, McConnell has tried to shield hisdivided Republicans from a difficult vote. OnWednesday he providedhis most fulsome views yet, suggesting he had kept hisword to start a “process” toaddressTrump’sdemands, even if itmeans no votes will actually be taken.
McConnell had earlier unveiled a new bill loaded up with Trump’s other priorities as a possible off-ramp for the stand off. It included the $2,000 checks as well as a complicated repeal of protections for tech companies like Facebook or Twitter under Section 230 of a communications law that the president complained are unfair to conservatives. It also tacked on the establishmentof a bipartisan commission to review the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats opposed that approach and it does not have enough support to pass the Senate.
No votes on additional aid are scheduled. For McConnell, the procedural moves allowed him to check the box over the commitments he made when Trump was defiantly refusing to sign off on the big year-end package last weekend.
“To ensure the President was comfortable signing the bill into law, the Senatecommitted to beginning one process that would combine three of the President’s priorities,” McConnell said. “That was a commitment, and that’swhat happened.”
Liberal senators led by Bernie Sanders of Vermont who support the relief aid are blocking action on the defense bill until a vote can betakenonTrump’sdemand for $2,000 for most Americans.
Sanders thundered on the floor thatMcConnell should call residents in theGOPleader’s home state of Kentucky “and find out how they feel about the need for immediate help in terms of a $2,000 check.”
The two GOP senators from Georgia, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, announced Tuesday they support Trump’s plan for bigger checks as they face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate.