House GOP Poised to Block Pelosi’s Bid for $2,000 Relief Checks
Pelosi Plans Thursday Vote on Trump’s $2,000 Stimulus Checks
(Bloomberg) -- House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told fellow Republicans Wednesday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to pass a bill boosting stimulus payments for individuals to $2,000 will fail, according to a person who participated in a private call with GOP House members.
Pelosi swiftly took up President Donald Trump’s demand for larger payments to individuals in the coronavirus relief package Congress passed Monday night, seeking to approve it in the House on Thursday.
Pelosi’s plan to seek unanimous consent to increase the direct payments to $2,000 from the $600 in Monday’s bill can be blocked by a single lawmaker. Republicans planned to halt her attempt.
If the measure fails on Thursday, Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal will introduce a new bill, called the Cash Act, to be put on the floor Monday. That bill would codify the larger stimulus payments, Pelosi told Democrats in a private call on Wednesday, according to a person on the call.
McCarthy wrote to party colleagues Wednesday night that Republicans would seek separate action on a proposal to “revisit how tax dollars are spent overseas when Americans are struggling to make ends meet.” Trump has objected to foreign aid in the legislation.
“It will be up to Speaker Pelosi to decide if she wants to act on behalf of the American people,” McCarthy said.
Trump’s demand for bigger checks came alongside a slew of his complaints about the $2.3 trillion bill enacted with big bipartisan support on Monday. The legislation wrapped $900 billion in Covid-19 relief with $1.4 trillion in government funding.
Trump’s surprise demand for amendments cast doubt over whether he’d sign the bill. It’s unclear whether congressional Republicans would vote to override the president should he reject the legislation.
Pelosi said earlier Wednesday in a letter to House Democrats, “If the president truly wants to join us in $2,000 payments, he should call upon Leader McCarthy to agree to our unanimous consent request.”
GOP lawmakers had resisted larger stimulus checks in an effort to hold the total cost of the pandemic package below $1 trillion, citing concerns about a wider fiscal deficit.
The speaker also urged the president sign the legislation approved on Monday. Trump needs to sign it by Dec. 28 to avert a lapse in government funding after midnight that day.
“The entire country knows that it is urgent for the president to sign this bill, both to provide the coronavirus relief and to keep government open,” Pelosi said in her letter.
Roll Call?
Before the McCarthy comment to Republicans, Pelosi said she planned to convene the House in a pro-forma session at 9 a.m. Thursday.
If her unanimous-consent request is blocked, the speaker and her lieutenants would then need to decide whether they want to the bring it before the entire House for a roll-call vote.
Economic data on Wednesday underscored the need for help, with Americans’ incomes tumbling 1.1% in November -- far worse than economists had anticipated, and the second straight drop. Initial filings for jobless claims held above 800,000 in the most recent week, more than quadruple where they were in late January.
Stocks largely shrugged off the news on the complications in Washington and on the economy. The S&P 500 Index closed up 0.1% in lighter-than-usual pre-holiday trading, halting a three-day slump.
Pelosi separately plans to take up next week an effort to override Trump’s veto of the national defense authorization act. The NDAA passed with large bipartisan majorities, as did Monday’s spending bill, putting the president at odds with members of his own party in Congress.
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