Insensitive Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocks $2,000 COVID-19 checks pushed by the Dems as the coronavirus pandemic rages through America and Black people are starving...By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (R-KY)

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.

Washington, D.C.-Congressional Republicans on Tuesday blocked a legislative measure pushed by Congressional Democrats that would have boosted $600 stimulus checks relative to the coronavirus pandemic to $2,000.

Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, the House had voted 275 to 134 on Monday to approve the bill for a stimulus checks hike and the measure was before the Senate to Tuesday where McConnell, 78, gave it a thumbs down and refused emphatically to advance  the proposed legislation for further review by the Republican-dominated Senate. 

Meanwhile, the Black community, which has been the hardest by the pandemic, continues to starve, Blacks impacted at more than three to five times the rate of Whites, from unemployment to coronavirus cases and deaths.

The relief  measure sought to remedy a discrepancy between Congressional Democrats and Republicans over the amount of monies allocated for individuals struggling to put food on the table as the crimpling pandemic rages across America, and the world.

The House voted 359-53 on Dec. 22 to pass a $900 billion Covid-19 relief package shorty before the Senate approved the measure in a 92-6 vote.

It was the second major relief bill since the coronavirus pandemic hit the country in early March with a vengeance, this latest package providing stimulus checks of up to $600 per person for individuals earning $75,000 per year and married couples who earn up to $150,000, with $600 more for each dependent under 18 living in the same household.

President Trump, however, initially refused to sign the $900 billion relief package measure and instead demanded an increase in individual stimulus checks from $600 $2,000.

The president later signed the deal into law with the expectation that stimulus monies would subsequently be increased by Congress through additional legislation, prompting Pelosi to get House  Democrats, with some Republican support, to pass Monday's House  measure to increase COVID-19 relief checks from $600 to $2,000, that issue now in limbo after McConnell blocked the initiative. 

Congressional Democrats remain upset over the manner in which the Republicans have handled the coronavirus stimulus relief issues.

“American families should not have had to wait this long for coronavirus relief,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat whose ninth congressional district extends to Cleveland and the longest serving woman in the U.S House. “It is a national disgrace that Senate Republicans refused to act for over half a year while COVID-19 ravaged our nation, infecting over 17.2 million Americans and killing over 310,000, resulting in devastating public health and economic crises affecting every single person in this country.”

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.