Sanders, Hawley Mount Rare Bipartisan Push For $1,200 Stimulus Checks

Hawley, a staunch conservative, introduced a bill Thursday to provide another round of the direct cash payments in the CARES Act: $1,200 for individuals who make $75,000 or less annually, $2,400 to couples who make $150,000 or less and $500 to non-dependent children.

Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist, joined the push later in the afternoon, taking to the floor to demand any relief package include those $1,200 checks and announce a stimulus check amendment to a must-pass spending bill to temporarily fund the government.

“If we could do it in March – and it was the right thing then – now, at a time when the situation in many ways is even worse, we can and must do it today,” Sanders argued, calling the current situation a “national emergency.”

Hawley, in his speech, said “working people and working families should be first on our to-do list, not last,” and asserted Republicans who say there “isn’t enough” for stimulus checks after other expenditures have their priorities “exactly reversed.”

Sanders was joined by five other progressive Democrats – Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) – in a letter released Tuesday urging their senate colleagues to demand $1,200 stimulus checks.

Spokespeople for Wyden and Markey reiterated their support for individual stimulus checks to Forbes but didn’t say whether they would support the one-off effort; Forbes has reached out to Gillibrand, Merkley, Warren, Sanders and Hawley for comment.