41 Senate Democrats Join Mitch McConnell in Advancing $740 Billion NDAA without Voting on Sending $2,000 Checks to Struggling Americans.
Only six Democrats and five Republicans in the Senate voted to block the override of Trump's veto to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.
After President Trump came out in support of sending $2,000 checks to the American public in a surprise move last week that nearly caused a government shutdown, Democrats in the House were joined by 44 Republicans and they were able to obtain the two-thirds majority of votes they needed to pass a stand-alone bill send $2,000 to some Americans.
At this point, it seemed like the only people in government standing in the way of $2,000 checks were Senate Republicans. Unfortunately, when it came down to crunch time and Bernie Sanders attempted to organize a motion to block the Senates scheduled override of Donald Trump’s veto of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act unless the Senate held a vote on the bill to send $2,000 to some Americans, 41 Democrats in the Senate joined Mitch McConnell in voting to push the $740 Billion NDAA forward without holding a vote on sending $2,000 checks to struggling Americans.
An article in the independent news outlet The Daily Poster by David Sirota and Andrew Perez explained that it was extremely likely that Democratic leadership would “back down the moment any bad-faith critic so much as waved a flag and said ‘support the troops.’” Sirota and Perez continue saying, “the sheer scale of Wednesday’s Democratic surrender was truly a sight to behold. And it probably ended the chance for more immediate aid to millions of Americans facing eviction, starvation, and bankruptcy.”
Bernie was joined by just five other Democrats in addition to five Republicans, including Senator Josh Hawley who’s worked with Bernie to get direct cash relief into the most recent COVID bill. The five Democrats that voted with Bernie were Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, Jeff Merkley, and Ron Wyden. Every other Democrat in the Senate sided with McConnell. A clear message that tells the American people that the bipartisan ruling class is more concerned with allocating billions in funding for endless wars than they are with even holding a vote on sending increased stimulus checks to struggling Americans during the worst public health crisis in American history.
One of Democrats in the Senate who voted along with McConnell to push forward the NDAA without first holding a vote to send $2,000 checks to the American people was none other than Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who ironically enough is one of the lead co-sponsors of a bill to send Americans recurring monthly $2,000 checks.
According to The Daily Poster, “One day before she voted to help McConnell, Harris had called on the Republican leader to hold a vote on her legislation.”. In a move that surprised nobody, Harris ended up voting to help McConnell without obtaining anything in return. Remember that she supported pushing through $740 Billion in funding for endless war over holding a vote on a bill to send $2,000 to struggling Americans when she attempts to run for President again in 2024.
It’s the definition of a moral failure when Democrats and Republicans in the Senate will support spending $740 billion on a bloated defense budget, but refuse to give Americans just $2,000 in direct cash relief. This is just another example of how leadership within both parties supports funding for endless war over funding to assist the public during the worst public health crisis in American history.
Even if the bill comes up for a vote in the Senate, Majority Leader McConnell has indicated that the stand-alone bill to send $2,000 checks to some Americans that recently passed the House with bipartisan support will only get to the Senate floor for a vote if it’s tied to two other bills.
One of these is a bill that would offer a symbolic objection to the electoral colleges’ certification of Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections, and the other is a bill that would reform section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Reforming section 230 could potentially allow social media companies to be sued for misinformation posted on their platforms. Tying the stand-alone bill for $2,000 checks to these other unrelated bills would make the potential the package extremely unlikely to pass in the Senate with Democratic support.
Doing this enables McConnell to follow through on his promise to bring $2,000 checks to the Senate floor for a vote, which he made to Trump to get him to sign the government funding package containing $600 checks into law earlier this week. By tying the checks to two other policies that are strongly opposed by Democrats, McConnell could potentially create a win-win situation for himself where he can fulfill his promise to Trump while simultaneously knowing that the bill won’t pass since Democrats would no longer support it.
Right now it seems that the only way to get a vote on a bill to send $2,000 checks to the American public would be to force Mitch McConnell and Democratic Party leadership to reckon with the possibility that if they’re the ones who the public thinks is standing in the way of giving them more money, that it could seriously hurt their chances of winning the Senate runoff elections in Georgia which will decide who has control of the Senate at the start of a Biden administration. The Republicans running for re-election in these races, David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler failed to show up for the vote on blocking the Senates override of Trump’s veto of the NDAA unless the Senate voted on a bill to send $2,000 checks to struggling Americans.
Even though the austerity ideology that plagues leadership within both parties has caused party leadership to oppose sending increased stimulus checks to the American people if leadership within either party realizes that holding onto power relies on offering greater assistance to the public it’s likely they’ll do whatever it takes to hold onto their power.