GOP blocks $2,000 checks as Trump leaves C***D aid in chaos
Dec 25, 2020 09:52:53 #
Republicans helped create this Frankenstein monster then surprised when he plunders the city. Wow, what did they expect????
LISA MASCARO and ANDREW TAYLOR
Fri, December 25, 2020, 12:42 AM CST
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s sudden demand for $2,000 checks for most Americans was swiftly rejected by House Republicans as his haphazard actions have thrown a massive C***D relief and government funding bill into chaos.
The rare Christmas Eve session of the House lasted just minutes, with help for millions of Americans awaiting Trump's signature on the bill. Unemployment benefits, eviction protections and other emergency aid, including smaller $600 checks, are at risk. Trump’s refusal of the $900 billion package, which is linked to $1.4 trillion government funds bill, could spark a federal shutdown at midnight Monday.
“We’re not going to let the government shut down, nor are we going to let the American people down,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader.
The optics appear terrible for Republicans, and the outgoing president, as the nation suffers through the worst holiday season many can remember. Families are isolated under C***D precautions and millions of American households are devastated without adequate income, food or shelter. The v***s death toll of 327,000-plus is rising.
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Trump is ending his presidency much the way he started it — sowing confusion and reversing promises all while contesting the e******n and courting a federal shutdown over demands his own party in Congress will not meet.
The congressional Republican leaders have been left almost speechless by Trump’s year-end scorching of their work.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy helped negotiate the year-end deal, a prized bipartisan compromise, that won sweeping approval this week in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boasted that the $600 checks all sides had agreed to for Americans would be in the mail in a week.
Instead, Washington is now hurtling toward a crisis with C***D aid about to collapse, as the president is at his Mar-a-Lago club. He has been lashing out at GOP leaders for refusing to join his efforts to overturn the e******n that Joe Biden won when the E*******l College v**es are tallied in Congress on J*** 6.
"The best way out of this is for the president to sign the bill,” Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri said Thursday. “And I still hope that’s what he decides.”
Racing to salvage the year-end legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mnuchin are in talks on options.
Democrats will recall House lawmakers to Washington for a v**e Monday on Trump’s proposal, with a roll call that would put all members on record as supporting or rejecting the $2,000 checks. They are also considering a Monday v**e on a stop-gap measure to at least avert a federal shutdown. It would keep the government running until Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20. Lawmakers will also be asked to override Trump's veto of a must-pass Defense bill.
After presiding over the short House session, an exasperated Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., decried the possibility that the C***D assistance may collapse.
“It is Christmas Eve, but it is not a silent night. All is not calm. For too many, nothing is bright," she said on Capitol Hill.
A town hall she hosted the night before "had people crying, people terrified of what is going to happen,” she said. One father recently told her he had to tell his children there would be no Santa Claus this year.
The president’s push to increase direct payments for most Americans from $600 to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for couples drives support from Democrats but splits the GOP with a politically difficult test of their loyalty to the president.
Republican lawmakers traditionally balk at the big spending, never fully embracing Trump’s populist approach. Many have opposed larger $2,000 checks as too costly and poorly targeted.
On a conference call Wednesday House Republican lawmakers complained that Trump threw them under the bus, according to one Republican on the private call and granted anonymity to discuss it. Most had v**ed for the package and they urged GOP leaders to hit the cable news shows to explain its benefits, the person said.
Yet the president has found common ground with Democrats, particularly leading liberals who support the $2,000 payments as the best way to help struggling Americans. Democrats only settled for the lower number to compromise with Republicans.
Even if the House is able to approve Trump's $2,000 checks on Monday, that measure would likely die in the GOP-controlled Senate, which is due back in session on Tuesday.
The president's unpredictable demands are creating more Trump-related headaches for Georgia GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are fighting for their political lives — and for continued GOP control of the Senate — in a pair of Jan. 5 Georgia run-off e******ns. They are being forced to choose whether to back or buck Trump, potentially angering v**ers on all sides.
The clash Thursday unfolded as the Democratic-controlled House convened for a routine pro forma session, which had been scheduled before Trump’s sudden moves, when lawmakers anticipated no business being conducted.
Instead, the 12-minute House session morphed into a procedural brawl as Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, sought the unanimous approval of all House members to pass the bill with Trump’s proposal. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who was not present in the nearly-empty chamber, refused.
House Republicans then tried, and failed, to win unanimous approval of their own proposal to revisit routine foreign aid funding, which Trump had cited as one of his key objections to the overall spending package.
The year-end package Trump railed against as a “disgrace” is the product of months of work. It would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit, along with a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters and money for schools. Money is included for health care providers and to help with C***D v*****e distribution. Trump took aim at foreign aid funds in the package he has agreed to in the past and asked for in his yearly budget.
The final text of the more than 5,000-page bill required days to be compiled but Pelosi announced Thursday that it was completed and being sent to the White House for Trump’s signature.
The year-end timing complicates the schedule ahead. Even if Trump doesn't formally veto the package, he could allow it to expire with a “pocket veto” at the end of the congressional session.
The Senate cleared the huge relief package Monday by a 92-6 v**e after the House approved it by 359-53. Those v**es totals would be enough to override a veto should Trump decide to take that step.
LISA MASCARO and ANDREW TAYLOR
Fri, December 25, 2020, 12:42 AM CST
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s sudden demand for $2,000 checks for most Americans was swiftly rejected by House Republicans as his haphazard actions have thrown a massive C***D relief and government funding bill into chaos.
The rare Christmas Eve session of the House lasted just minutes, with help for millions of Americans awaiting Trump's signature on the bill. Unemployment benefits, eviction protections and other emergency aid, including smaller $600 checks, are at risk. Trump’s refusal of the $900 billion package, which is linked to $1.4 trillion government funds bill, could spark a federal shutdown at midnight Monday.
“We’re not going to let the government shut down, nor are we going to let the American people down,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader.
The optics appear terrible for Republicans, and the outgoing president, as the nation suffers through the worst holiday season many can remember. Families are isolated under C***D precautions and millions of American households are devastated without adequate income, food or shelter. The v***s death toll of 327,000-plus is rising.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
Trump is ending his presidency much the way he started it — sowing confusion and reversing promises all while contesting the e******n and courting a federal shutdown over demands his own party in Congress will not meet.
The congressional Republican leaders have been left almost speechless by Trump’s year-end scorching of their work.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy helped negotiate the year-end deal, a prized bipartisan compromise, that won sweeping approval this week in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boasted that the $600 checks all sides had agreed to for Americans would be in the mail in a week.
Instead, Washington is now hurtling toward a crisis with C***D aid about to collapse, as the president is at his Mar-a-Lago club. He has been lashing out at GOP leaders for refusing to join his efforts to overturn the e******n that Joe Biden won when the E*******l College v**es are tallied in Congress on J*** 6.
"The best way out of this is for the president to sign the bill,” Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri said Thursday. “And I still hope that’s what he decides.”
Racing to salvage the year-end legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mnuchin are in talks on options.
Democrats will recall House lawmakers to Washington for a v**e Monday on Trump’s proposal, with a roll call that would put all members on record as supporting or rejecting the $2,000 checks. They are also considering a Monday v**e on a stop-gap measure to at least avert a federal shutdown. It would keep the government running until Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20. Lawmakers will also be asked to override Trump's veto of a must-pass Defense bill.
After presiding over the short House session, an exasperated Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., decried the possibility that the C***D assistance may collapse.
“It is Christmas Eve, but it is not a silent night. All is not calm. For too many, nothing is bright," she said on Capitol Hill.
A town hall she hosted the night before "had people crying, people terrified of what is going to happen,” she said. One father recently told her he had to tell his children there would be no Santa Claus this year.
The president’s push to increase direct payments for most Americans from $600 to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for couples drives support from Democrats but splits the GOP with a politically difficult test of their loyalty to the president.
Republican lawmakers traditionally balk at the big spending, never fully embracing Trump’s populist approach. Many have opposed larger $2,000 checks as too costly and poorly targeted.
On a conference call Wednesday House Republican lawmakers complained that Trump threw them under the bus, according to one Republican on the private call and granted anonymity to discuss it. Most had v**ed for the package and they urged GOP leaders to hit the cable news shows to explain its benefits, the person said.
Yet the president has found common ground with Democrats, particularly leading liberals who support the $2,000 payments as the best way to help struggling Americans. Democrats only settled for the lower number to compromise with Republicans.
Even if the House is able to approve Trump's $2,000 checks on Monday, that measure would likely die in the GOP-controlled Senate, which is due back in session on Tuesday.
The president's unpredictable demands are creating more Trump-related headaches for Georgia GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are fighting for their political lives — and for continued GOP control of the Senate — in a pair of Jan. 5 Georgia run-off e******ns. They are being forced to choose whether to back or buck Trump, potentially angering v**ers on all sides.
The clash Thursday unfolded as the Democratic-controlled House convened for a routine pro forma session, which had been scheduled before Trump’s sudden moves, when lawmakers anticipated no business being conducted.
Instead, the 12-minute House session morphed into a procedural brawl as Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, sought the unanimous approval of all House members to pass the bill with Trump’s proposal. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who was not present in the nearly-empty chamber, refused.
House Republicans then tried, and failed, to win unanimous approval of their own proposal to revisit routine foreign aid funding, which Trump had cited as one of his key objections to the overall spending package.
The year-end package Trump railed against as a “disgrace” is the product of months of work. It would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit, along with a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters and money for schools. Money is included for health care providers and to help with C***D v*****e distribution. Trump took aim at foreign aid funds in the package he has agreed to in the past and asked for in his yearly budget.
The final text of the more than 5,000-page bill required days to be compiled but Pelosi announced Thursday that it was completed and being sent to the White House for Trump’s signature.
The year-end timing complicates the schedule ahead. Even if Trump doesn't formally veto the package, he could allow it to expire with a “pocket veto” at the end of the congressional session.
The Senate cleared the huge relief package Monday by a 92-6 v**e after the House approved it by 359-53. Those v**es totals would be enough to override a veto should Trump decide to take that step.
Dec 25, 2020 10:06:08 #
Michael10 wrote:
Republicans helped create this Frankenstein monste... (show quote)
I think we will find t***p w*n't sign anything he's more interested in punishing everyone he thinks has betrayed him and that now includes the GOP.
Dec 25, 2020 10:19:31 #
Lonewolf wrote:
I think we will find t***p w*n't sign anything he's more interested in punishing everyone he thinks has betrayed him and that now includes the GOP.
Throw all 5,500 + pages of this bill in a shredder on public TV. And then tell the House, they don't get their $25,000.00 Raises. They deserve their pink slips 
Dec 25, 2020 10:25:16 #
Lonewolf wrote:
I think we will find t***p w*n't sign anything he's more interested in punishing everyone he thinks has betrayed him and that now includes the GOP.
Sadly it includes the American people who v**ed him out of office. Let’s hope the v**ers in Georgia are paying attention and do the same to their crooked billionaire senators!
Dec 25, 2020 10:48:45 #
Ronald Hatt
Loc: Lansing, Mich
Michael10 wrote:
Republicans helped create this Frankenstein monste... (show quote)
1. How does Trump get blamed for Corrupt leadership in the Demoncrat Congress, led by Nasty Pelosi, & her band of Anti-Americans?
2. Pelosi, could have had 3 trillion $'s....{ but she "re-nigged", her common sense & decency!}
3. Why do the Demoncrats, always load up a bill with useless self-serving & narcissistic 'PORK".....& then blame Republicans, because the Demoncrats are full of ...{ you know what}!
4. Obama, advanced the Nation Debt, by 19 trillion $'s.....{ ALL BY HIS LONESOME}...on 'Shovel ready jobs, & a very Bogus Solar panel project}......that did not exist}....& Obama, giggled on national TV, about that?
5. if the Demoncrat party "disappeared" today, & never returned.....that would be "SWELL"...for the American political system!...............
Dec 25, 2020 10:50:38 #
Lonewolf wrote:
I think we will find t***p w*n't sign anything he's more interested in punishing everyone he thinks has betrayed him and that now includes the GOP.
The whiney little b***h !!!!!
Dec 25, 2020 10:54:03 #
Ronald Hatt wrote:
1. How does Trump get blamed for Corrupt leadersh... (show quote)
This is only your Opinion, right ?
No facts, just conjecture.
Dec 25, 2020 10:57:32 #
Weasel wrote: Throw all 5,500 + pages of this bill in a shredder on public TV. And then tell the House, they don't get their $25,000.00 Raises. They deserve their pink slips
Throw all 5,500 + pages of this bill in a shredder on public TV. And then tell the House, they don't get their $25,000.00 Raises. They deserve their pink slips This pork laden bill is an insult and a slap in the face to every American who has lost a job or had their business shut down due to C***D.
Dec 25, 2020 10:58:55 #
Ronald Hatt wrote:
1. How does Trump get blamed for Corrupt leadersh... (show quote)
13 Trillion was from Bush 43 unrecorded Iraq War Debt, unreported expenses of War Debt.
Dec 25, 2020 11:11:48 #
Weasel wrote: Throw all 5,500 + pages of this bill in a shredder on public TV. And then tell the House, they don't get their $25,000.00 Raises. They deserve their pink slips
Throw all 5,500 + pages of this bill in a shredder on public TV. And then tell the House, they don't get their $25,000.00 Raises. They deserve their pink slips I agree Weasel, I am retired living pay check to pay check. I hope president
trump vetos the bill. There should be only one bill for the stimulus, not for all the other pork. We need not send money to other countries when we need it here at home. Dinty
Dec 25, 2020 11:19:23 #
Lonewolf wrote:
I think we will find t***p w*n't sign anything he's more interested in punishing everyone he thinks has betrayed him and that now includes the GOP.
You are not very bright. The GOP won't sign for $2000 checks until the foreign aid pork is removed. Billions of dollars to Pakistan, Nepal, and other countries in what is supposed to be a relief bill for US citizens. Wetbacks are eligible to receive $1800 while US citizens only get $600. Get a brain.
Dec 25, 2020 11:20:59 #
Kevyn wrote:
Sadly it includes the American people who v**ed him out of office. Let’s hope the v**ers in Georgia are paying attention and do the same to their crooked billionaire senators!
So they can be replaced by Schmuck Schumer's sock puppets?
Dec 25, 2020 16:25:41 #
Smedley_buzk**l wrote:
You are not very bright. The GOP won't sign for $2000 checks until the foreign aid pork is removed. Billions of dollars to Pakistan, Nepal, and other countries in what is supposed to be a relief bill for US citizens. Wetbacks are eligible to receive $1800 while US citizens only get $600. Get a brain.
The two are not at all related, the one time republicans in congress should go along with Trump they don’t.
Dec 26, 2020 05:26:40 #
America 1
Loc: South Miami
Michael10 wrote:
Republicans helped create this Frankenstein monste... (show quote)
Why is it there is more concern for people and countries other than legal U.S. citizens?
Families are hurting and the solution is sending money to everyone except the ones that are in need.
Dec 26, 2020 07:18:00 #
My 2 cents.Its way past time to cut some of the worlds tit suckers loose.I know why so much money is given away.Kickbacks nothing more.Remember Haiti and all the billions sent to rebuild infrastructure.Politicians funneled most of it back into their pockets.This country needs all this money to help us .
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