House votes for $2,000 stimulus checks without any cuts to other spending

 Washington Examiner:

House lawmakers in both parties voted Monday to increase the amount of money provided in a new round of federal stimulus checks, agreeing with a request from President Trump to bolster direct payments aimed at helping individuals and families during the pandemic.

The measure would provide $2,000 to individuals and $4,000 for couples, which is significantly higher than the $600 for individuals and $1,200 for couples provided in a relief measure Congress passed this month.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has not signaled whether he will bring up the House bill, but it’s unlikely to win much GOP support because it does not include new offers and would simply add to the deficit.

Trump signed the coronavirus aid package and government funding bill Sunday but sent it back to Congress with a request to bolster the checks to $2,000 and rescind some of the spending. The $900 billion package was bundled with a $1.4 trillion measure that funds the government through fiscal 2021.

...

It looks uncertain at this point.  If the Senate takes it up, they are likely to demand cuts elsewhere which Democrats may refuse.  Trump is looking at the Impoundment Control Act to cut spending.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more