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Will Mitch McConnell agree? House passes $2,000 Covid-19 relief checks bill with 44 GOP members backing it

Forty-four House GOP members voted in favor of the bill and now it is to be seen whether their Senate counterparts also back the same

The House of Representatives on Monday, December 28, passed a bill that would raise Americans’ stimulus checks to $2,000, something that President Donald Trump demanded after the bill was sent to his desk for signature last week. The move would see the stimulus package going up from $600 and the voting happened a day after the president signed the pandemic aid worth more than $2 trillion into law. 

The Democrat-dominated House passed the payments in a fast-track procedure with just enough backing required to meet the two-thirds threshold. It passed the measure in a 275-134 vote. All but two House Democrats who voted on December 28 evening were joined by as many as 44 Republicans to pass the bill. One hundred and thirty Republican members and two Independents voted against it. Twenty-one lawmakers stayed away from voting. 

The bill now goes to the Senate where the Republican Party is in control and Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s majority leader, has not been openly supportive of the measure. CNBC News said in a report that a spokesperson for McConnell did not immediately respond to a request to remark on whether the Senate would vote on the bill passed by the House. “In a Sunday statement cheering Trump’s decision to pass the year-end legislation, McConnell did not mention any plans to vote on larger payments,” it said. 

On Sunday (December 27) night, Trump signed the giant spending and stimulus bill after flirting with the idea of vetoing it for many days. He said he told the Congress that he wanted a “far less wasteful spending and more money going into the American people in the form of $2,000 checks per adult and $600 per child”. He also called the earlier payment amount a “disgrace”. However, he eventually gave his assent to the bill that includes $900 billion in coronavirus relief and $1.4 trillion for government funding through September next year. His approval prevented 14 million Americans from losing their unemployment benefits boost and averted a government shutdown in the midst of the pandemic.

However, the president, by seeking a raise in the stimulus check amounts, found friends in the Democratic Party -- irrespective of the progressives or moderates. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he would try to pass the legislation in the Senate on Tuesday, December 29. “Every Senate Democrat is for this much-needed increase in emergency financial relief, which can be approved tomorrow if no Republican blocks it – there is no good reason for Senate Republicans to stand in the way,” the veteran New York senator said in a statement.

Senator Bernie Sanders has also been speaking in favor of raising the stimulus payment and he said he would delay the chamber’s plans to override Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act this week till it votes in favor of bigger checks. 

“Let me be clear: If Senator McConnell doesn’t agree to an up or down vote to provide the working people of our country a $2,000 direct payment, Congress will not be going home for New Year’s Eve. Let’s do our job,” he said in a statement.