“We could have passed the bill four days ago, but our colleagues on the other side were against the president’s wishes and blocked it,” said Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Chamber’s Resources and Resources Committee. Monday.
The action now turns to the Senate, where it is unclear whether the chamber will even accept the House’s proposal, despite Trump insisting on Sunday night that he secured an agreement from Republican leaders to do so. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer will try to approve the House bill by unanimous consent on Tuesday, but Republicans must object. Many Republican Party senators have resisted checks on higher stimuli.
Unless there is cooperation from all 100 senators, it would take several days to settle a roll call vote on the proposal and it would be necessary to win 60 votes. This is a steep path to approval – and everything is happening during what should be a holiday for Congress.
But even though Democrats cannot guarantee higher payments to the public, Trump gave them the opportunity to take a politically popular position and split the Republican Party in the process. Only 44 House Republicans voted for the bigger checks, with 130 against.
“The president of the United States presented this as something he wants to see,” said spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi before the vote. “I hope that this view is shared by Republicans in the Senate.”
President-elect Joe Biden also gave his opinion on Monday, telling reporters he was in favor of increasing checks to $ 2,000. Trump was strangely quiet on Monday, with the only reports of sightings of the president taking place on his golf course in West Palm Beach.
At a news conference on Monday, Schumer said that Trump needs to be much more vocal in demanding Republican support if he wants the stimulus to be implemented.
“These Senate Republicans followed him at all times,” said Schumer. “For the president: talking is not enough. Act. Pick up the phone and get Republicans in the Senate to support $ 2,000 in aid. ”
In a sign that larger checks are gaining a certain favor among conservatives, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) Endorsed the $ 2,000 payments as the House voted: “I share the concern of many of my colleagues about the effects of long-term additional spending, but we cannot ignore the fact that millions of working class families across the country still urgently need help. “
Still, Democrats hope, many Republicans will use the cost increase as a justification for not supporting the bill. Raising direct payments to $ 2,000 would cost about $ 464 billion, up from about $ 160 billion today, according to a Congressional estimate released on Monday.
A handful of Republicans, including Ways and Means ranking member Kevin Brady (R-Texas), opposed the bill, citing additional spending or saying the money could be better spent elsewhere in the economy.
The House was already scheduled for a session on Monday to dispatch another Trump-related wrinkle – the president’s veto on the annual defense policy bill. The bill, which was signed into law for almost 60 consecutive years, passed both chambers earlier this month with veto-proof majorities. If the House and Senate are successful this week in defeating Trump, it will be the first revocation of his presidential veto.
Last Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Said he would block the Senate’s consideration of overturning the veto until Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell agreed to take the check bill bill. encouragement of the Chamber to vote. The strange Sanders couple and Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Have teamed up to press for $ 1,200 stimulus checks during coronavirus relief negotiations earlier this month.
The House’s stimulus vote on Monday ends an unusually frantic week in Washington, a city that, despite its unpredictable political maneuvers, tends to stay calm during the Christmas and New Year holidays.
A week ago, Congress finally broke an eight-month stalemate to pass the hopelessly needed aid bill after days of drama and difficult negotiations. Lawmakers quickly left town to be surprised in the middle of the week by a video that Trump posted on Twitter against the bill.
The ambush left Washington in limbo for several days, while the president continued to criticize the direct payment amounts negotiated by his own Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the levels of foreign aid requested by his own White House.
The move also opened up a chicken game with Congressional leaders, who refused to take lawmakers back to the Capitol to meet Trump’s demands and began making contingency plans in case the president allowed government funding to expire on Monday at midnight.
The House first tried to pass the bill that increased direct payments on Christmas Eve through unanimous consent, but Republicans objected. Over the weekend, Trump continued to protest the aid package only to finally sign it on Sunday, after days of lobbying by some of his closest allies in Congress, including Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy.
While Trump avoided government shutdown, his delay caused at least a temporary lapse in critical unemployment benefits for millions of struggling Americans; the programs expired the day after Christmas and were renewed in the aid package.
In addition to unemployment benefits and direct payments, the $ 900 billion measure provides coronavirus funding for schools, small businesses and vaccine distribution.
Burgess Everett contributed to this report.