Monday night, lawmakers in the House overwhelmingly approved the measure to increase COVID-19 relief checks from $600 to $2,000.

President Donald Trump had been urging Republicans to increase the payments in the relief bill he signed Sunday. But many Republicans are against how much it would increase the bill's price tag. It is still not clear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the rest of the GOP-controlled Senate will approve the measure when Democrats try to push it forward today.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted Monday night that he would move to pass the bill in the Senate.

The $900 billion stimulus package signed by President Trump Sunday night already includes billions of dollars for the distribution of vaccines, funds for schools, small businesses, hospitals, American families and money needed to keep the government open for the remainder of the fiscal year.

News 12's Elizabeth Hashagen was joined this morning by Marty Cantor to help sort out all of the details in the stimulus package. Cantor is a CPA and economic development consultant. 

The outcome is highly uncertain heading into today's session. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declined to publicly address how he plans to handle the issue. Right now Democrats are sharing a rare priority with the president.

This is a difficult vote for Republicans, they either back or defy the outgoing president.

The president took to social media to draw continued attention, and try to pressure Republicans to take action on the bill.

Cator had this to say about the relief bill:

Bumping the payments to $2,000 would cost roughly $463.8 billion, according to estimates by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. The bill is tacking on another 11 weeks of eligibility, through March 14, and supplying $300 on top of the underlying weekly benefit.

Below Cantor talks about how this money would help the economy: