McConnell Trolls Democrats by Tying $2,000 Stimulus Checks to Controversial Legislation

With a $600 direct payment to Americans beginning hit bank accounts this week, there are a great many elected officials who are disappointed that more was not done for the American people.

President Trump has repeatedly expressed his support for $2,000 COVID-19 relief payments to We The People – something that both Democrats and a vast number of congressional Republicans agree on.  The only problem is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been largely reticent to jump aboard the bandwagon.

This week, however, McConnell put forth a measure that could bring the extra money back to the table...but there’s a catch.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is moving ahead with a plan Wednesday to avoid a public rift within the GOP over stimulus payments demanded by President Trump ahead of a critical runoff election in Georgia.

The Senate is set to begin a complicated plan that Democrats say is deliberately meant to avoid a direct up-or-down vote on the $2,000 relief payments that passed the House earlier this week. On Tuesday, McConnell moved to tie the direct payments to Trump’s demands to investigate alleged voter fraud and to repeal a decades-old law that would open the door for lawsuits against social media companies for the content they choose to leave up or take down.

The Democrats were not thrilled with the idea.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has rejected that plan.

“What we’re seeing right now is Leader McConnell trying to kill the checks — the $2,000 checks desperately needed by so many American families — by tying them completely to partisan provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with helping struggling families across the country,” Schumer told reporters in the Capitol. “The only way to deliver the $2,000 survival checks to Americans is to pass the bipartisan House-passed bill.”

Making matters more complicated is a threat from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who says that he will filibuster a vote to override a Trump veto until such a time as the $2,000 checks are voted upon.