Before Christmas, both the Senate and the House passed a new COVID-19 relief measure. President Donald Trump later criticized the bill and, in particular, the amount provided for stimulus checks (under the proposal, eligible Americans would receive a $600 check). He even called on Congress to increase those payments to $2,000. While many lawmakers were on board with that idea, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was not one of them. McConnell has blocked efforts to increase stimulus checks multiple times over the past week. According to USA Today, the Kentucky Republican has even referred to the $2,000 payments as “socialism for rich people.”
The House passed the measure on Sunday in a 275 to 134 vote, with 44 Republicans joining the majority of Democrats to increase stimulus payments. The next step for that legislation was for it to go to the Senate. However, on Thursday, McConnell, for the third time this week, blocked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer from approving the bill to increase stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000. This means that Congress will be unlikely to pass this legislation to increase the size of these economic impact payments until a new Congress convenes next week. On Thursday, McConnell criticized Democrats for following Trump’s demand for increased payments but ignoring his two other qualms with the package — repealing key legal protections for big tech firms and examining the president’s claims that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election (there is no evidence to suggest that Trump’s claims are legitimate).
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“Socialism for rich people is a terrible way to help the American families that are actually struggling,” McConnell said. “Let me say that again. Borrowing from our grandkids to do socialism for rich people is a terrible way to get help to families who actually need it.” The senator’s statement came a day after he said that the measure to increase the amount in the stimulus checks had “no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate.”
“The Senate is not going to split apart the three issues that President Trump linked together just because Democrats are afraid to address two of them,” McConnell said on Wednesday while on the Senate floor. “The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats’ rich friends who don’t need the help.”
