Pressure is mounting for the Republican-led Senate to follow the House, which voted overwhelming Monday to meet the president’s demand to increase checks by $ 600 as the virus crisis worsens. A growing number of Republicans, including two senators in the January 5 runoff election in Georgia, have said they will support the largest number. But most Republican senators are opposed to spending more, even if they are also wary of fooling Trump.
The result is highly uncertain towards the rare session of the holiday week.
“We shouldn’t postpone it until the Senate holds a vote,” Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said when he introduced a motion to push it toward a vote.
McConnell, who has said little publicly about Trump’s request, objected, but gave almost no indication of his plans in advance.
“The Senate will begin a process,” the Republican Party leader said. He said he plans to concentrate the president’s demand for $ 2,000 checks and other remaining issues.
The showdown has turned Congress into a chaotic end-of-year session, just days before new lawmakers take office for the new year. He avoids action on another priority: overturning Trump’s veto on a defense bill that has been passed every year for 60 years.
The president’s last-minute push for greater control deeply divides Republicans, who are divided between those who align with Trump’s populist instincts and those who adhere to what had been more traditional points of view. conservative view against government spending. Congress had agreed to payments under $ 600 in a pledge on the big year-end relief bill that Trump reluctantly signed.
Liberal senators led by Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, who support aid assistance, are blocking the action of the defense bill until a vote can be cast on Trump’s $ 2,000 demand for a majority. Americans.
Georgia’s two Republican Party senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, announced Tuesday that they support Trump’s plan for larger checks as they face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the election that will determine which party controls the Senate.
“I’m happy to support the president,” Perdue told Fox News. Loeffler said in an interview with Fox that she also supports driven relief checks.
Trump tweeted his demands ahead of Tuesday’s session in the Senate: “$ 2,000 for our great people, not $ 600!”
The House vote on Monday afternoon was an impressive turnaround. A few days ago, during a brief Christmas Eve session, Republicans blocked Trump’s sudden demand for larger checks as he refused challenging him to sign COVID-19’s broader law on aid and funding at the end. of the year.
While Trump spent days smoking from his private club in Florida, where he spends the holidays, dozens of Republicans figured it was better to partner with Democrats to increase pandemic payments instead of spending the president and outgoing voters relying on the money. Democrats led the step, 275-134, but 44 Republicans joined almost every Democrat with approval.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “Republicans can choose: vote for this legislation or vote to deny the American people the biggest salaries they need.”
The confrontation could end up being more symbol than substance if Trump’s effort skyrockets in the Senate and he can do little to change the federal relief and spending package of COVID-19 that Trump signed on Sunday.
This package, of $ 900 billion in COVID-19 aid and $ 1.4 trillion to fund government agencies, will long be delivered cash to businesses and individuals and prevent a closure of the federal government that would otherwise have started on Tuesday.
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Along with this week’s votes to overturn Trump’s veto on a global defense bill, it’s potentially a final showdown between the president and the Republican party he leads as he imposes new demands and discusses election results presidential elections. The new Congress is to be sworn in on Sunday.
Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, a Republican on the Roads and Media Committee, acknowledged the split and said Congress had already approved many funds during the COVID-19 crisis. “Nothing in this bill helps anyone get back to work,” he said.
Aside from the $ 600 direct checks on most Americans, part of the COVID-19 bill revives a weekly increase in pandemic-free unemployment benefits (this time $ 300 through March 14), as well as the popular Payroll Protection Program subsidizes companies to keep workers payroll. It expands protection against evictions and adds a new rent assistance fund.
Americans earning up to $ 75,000 will qualify for direct payments of $ 600, which are gradually eliminated at higher income levels, and there is an additional payment of $ 600 per dependent child.
President-elect Joe Biden told reporters at an event in Wilmington, Delaware, that he supported the $ 2,000 checks.
Trump’s sudden decision to sign the bill came as he faced escalating criticism from lawmakers everywhere for his eleven-hour demands. The bipartisan bill negotiated by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had already been passed by the House and Senate by a wide margin. Lawmakers had thought they had Trump’s blessing after months of negotiations with his administration.
The president’s defiant refusal to act, advertised in a heated video tweeting just before the Christmas holidays, caused chaos, a lapse in the unemployment benefits of millions of people and the threat of a government shutdown in the pandemic. It was another crisis of its own, resolved when it finally signed the bill.
In his statement on the signing, Trump reiterated his frustrations with the COVID-19 relief bill to provide only $ 600 checks to most Americans and complained about what he considered unnecessary spending, especially in foreign aid, much proposed by its own budget.
While the president insisted he would send Congress “a redefined version” with the spending items he wants to eliminate, these are just suggestions to Congress. Democrats said they would resist those cuts.
For now, the administration can only start working by sending the $ 600 payments.
Most House Republicans simply put aside Trump’s push, 130 of them voting to reject higher controls that would add up to $ 467 billion in additional costs. Another 20 House Republicans, including California minority leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump confidant, skipped the vote, despite pandemic procedures that allow lawmakers to vote for representation to avoid traveling to the Capitol. McCarthy was recovering at home from elbow surgery, his office said.
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