Year-end session leaves bigger COVID-19 checks in Senate limbo

Increased stimulus checks remain in limbo in the Senate, where lawmakers are gathering Wednesday to begin the process of overriding President Trump’s veto of a critical defense bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday blocked quick consideration of a House-passed bill to boost a new round of checks from $600 to $2,000 per individual.

Instead, he proposed a measure that would combine the House bill with provisions Trump has been seeking to repeal a Big Tech lawsuit liability shield and to create a commission to study the integrity of federal elections.

Democrats consider the additional provisions “poison pills” and will not back this bundled legislation, so it’s not expected to pass this week or by the end of the 116th Congress, which expires at 11:59 a.m. on Jan. 3.

Democrats on Tuesday sought to pressure the GOP to take up the House-passed bill that simply increased the stimulus checks at the cost of $464 billion. The measure passed the House with the backing of more than 40 GOP lawmakers.

“Senator McConnell knows how to make $2,000 survival checks reality, and he knows how to kill them,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat. “If Sen. McConnell tries loading up the bipartisan House-passed CASH Act with unrelated, partisan provisions that will do absolutely nothing to help struggling families across the country, it will not pass the House and cannot become law — any move like this by Sen. McConnell would be a blatant attempt to deprive Americans of a $2,000 survival check.”

The $600 checks are included in a $900 billion coronavirus relief package Trump signed into law on Sunday night. While Trump signed the bill, he called on Congress to increase the checks to $2,000 and rescind some of the $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2021 government spending that Congress passed along with the virus aid package.

Republicans are divided over the additional stimulus money.