House Republicans block Democrats’ $2,000 stimulus check proposal, defying Trump in rare Christmas Eve session

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

House Republicans went on the official record on Christmas Eve opposing Donald Trump’s and Democrats’ proposal for $2,000 stimulus checks to help Americans through the coronavirus pandemic.

In a rare, brief pro forma session of the chamber on the morning before Christmas, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer requested “unanimous consent” to quickly take a vote on a bill to increase the stimulus check programme to $2,000 for most individuals instead of the $600 codified in a section of the comprehensive $900bn Covid relief bill passed by Congress earlier this week.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy denied that request, and within 12 minutes of opening the floor, the House adjourned.

“Merry Christmas,” said presiding officer and Democratic Congresswoman Deb Dingell.

In a Twitter video earlier this week, Mr Trump threatened to veto the $900bn Covid package unless lawmakers increase the value of direct payments to $2,000.

That has pitted him against congressional Republicans, who spent months in negotiations resisting Democrats’ efforts to keep the value of the second round of one-off checks from the government at $1,200. Some Democratic lawmakers have been calling for $2,000 recurring monthly stimulus checks since the spring of 2020.

“If the president is serious about the $2,000 direct payments, he must call on House Republicans to end their obstruction,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Thursday.

“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,” the speaker said.

Ms Pelosi will bring the $2,000 stimulus check proposal to the floor for a full, recorded vote when the House returns next Monday to override Mr Trump’s veto of a separate, bipartisan military budget bill.

“To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny them the relief they need,” she said.

Republicans held the line in Covid negotiations at onetime checks of $600 per individual making less than $75,000, and Democrats ultimately relented. That paved the way for lawmakers to carve out the rest of the deal that re-ups a key federal unemployment supplement, extends a nationwide eviction moratorium, unlocks hundreds of billions of dollars in loans for small- and medium-sized business, and provides several other kinds of economic relief.

No one can quite tell how serious Mr Trump is about vetoing the nearly $900bn Covid package that rode alongside the $1.4trn omnibus spending bill to fund the US government for the rest of fiscal year 2021.

If he does block it from becoming law, that will have tremendous real-world consequences.

Millions of jobless Americans will stop receiving a Covid-era federal supplement to their state unemployment checks on 26 December unless Mr Trump signs the bill, which re-ups the programme for $300 per week. While Republicans negotiated that number down from $600 per week, it’s still over $1,200 more per month in an unemployed American’s pocket than they otherwise would get.

Having finished all legislative business for the year on Monday, nearly every federal lawmaker has left Washington and fanned out all over the country to their respective hometowns for the holiday season. The House doesn’t return until Monday, 28 December. The Senate won’t be in session until the following day.

If Mr Trump does not sign the Covid bill and the $1.4trn government spending bill to which it is attached, the government could shut down next week, leaving thousands of government workers without paychecks heading into the new year, and shuttering key departmental operations in the middle of a global pandemic.