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On Tuesday, the US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked an attempt to vote on the $2,000 stimulus checks approved by the House of Representatives. The creation of a commission was to study election fraud and the repeal of Section 230, which shields social media companies from lawsuits. The House passed the bill introduced last week and brought it to the floor for a vote in response to the last-minute request from President Trump to increase the payments to $2,000. Point to be noted that many Republicans joined with their Democratic counterparts in support of the measure. However, Republicans resisted efforts by their Democratic colleagues to approve a coronavirus relief package with a $1 trillion price tag. A number of GOP senators have announced their support for the increased direct payments, including Georgia’s two Republican senators.

The US Senator Kelly Loeffler tweeted earlier Tuesday and announced her support for the $2,000 payments. She said, “I agree with @realDonaldTrump, we need to deliver $2,000 direct relief checks to the American people”. Senator David Perdue quickly followed the tweet and said, “President @realDonaldTrump is right. I support this push for $2,000 in direct relief for the American people”. But McConnell’s new legislation puts Senate Democrats as they would also have to approve the commission and the repeal of Section 230. The legislation is also likely to face opposition from fiscally conservative Republicans, who insist on targeted relief, not checks for all. The US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted McConnell’s attempt to bundle the stimulus increase with other measures. He said, “Senator McConnell knows how to make $2,000 survival checks reality and he knows how to kill them”.

Schumer said, “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 a blatant attempt to deprive Americans of a $2,000 survival check. Will Senate Republicans go along with Sen. McConnell’s cynical gambit or will they push him to give a vote on the standalone House-passed CASH Act?” The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated replacing the $600 direct payments approved in the latest coronavirus relief package with $2,000 checks would cost roughly $463.8 billion. After the objection from McConnell on earlier Tuesday, President Trump said the Senate must approve the $2,000 checks ASAP unless they have a death wish.