The Republican minority in the House of Representatives on Thursday blocked an attempt by Democrats to amend the relief plan negotiated by both parties and vetoed by President Donald Trump, who demanded an increase in the amount of aid.
After months of negotiations, Democrats, who control the lower house, and Republicans, who dominate the Senate, agreed on Monday to a $ 900 billion package to oxygenate an economy ravaged by the covid-19-induced crisis. , which destroyed millions of jobs.
The agreement was reached at a key time, before December 26, when a series of extraordinary aids agreed upon in an aid package approved at the start of the pandemic expire, exposing many households to run out of any income.
On Tuesday night, Trump surprised lawmakers by rejecting the deal, which includes an extraordinary $ 600 aid for people in need, and demanding that it be increased to $ 2,000 per person.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, tried to unanimously approve an increase in aid to $ 2,000 on Thursday, but Republicans blocked the initiative.
“Today, on Christmas Eve, Republicans in the House cruelly deprived Americans of the $ 2,000 the president agreed to support,” Pelosi said.
The Democratic leader noted that if Trump is serious about his proposal, he must urge Republicans to stop the “obstruction.”
Pelosi later reported that he had sent the law passed Monday to Trump, and urged him to sign it.
At the heart of the issue is the possibility that the president will not exercise the veto but simply pass the deadline to sign it, which would make the law pass to the next legislature, which begins on January 3.
Meanwhile, during Thursday’s session, Republicans tried to change the amount of foreign aid included in the budget package – another of Trump’s demands – and the opposition responded by blocking the proposal.
Faced with this maneuver, the leader of the Republican minority in the lower house accused Democrats of suffering from “selective hearing” problems.
With that the session was adjourned and the House will not meet until Monday 28 December.
– Serious consequences –
The two parties are facing off in an extraordinary election in Georgia on January 5, which will determine two seats in the Senate and will define who has control of the House.
With no time to maneuver, with an economy in which layoffs are accumulating in the face of the uncontrolled advance of the covid-19, it is unclear what the next step for Congress or the Executive will be, just days before the next legislature opens on Jan. 3 and less than a month before Democrat Joe Biden arrives in the White House.
Nearly 14 million unemployed Americans will run out of subsidies this weekend, which also ends a moratorium on evictions in the middle of the boreal winter.
Lawmakers are also facing the threat that if the budget package is not approved, the government will run out of funding next Monday afternoon, a paralysis of funds that could force the administration to close activities and put its officials on unpaid leave.
This closure comes at a time when the pandemic, which leaves more than 326,200 dead in the United States, more than in any other country, continues to advance on the eve of the New Year holidays, in which many displacements are expected and a rise in infections.
This would not be the first time in the Trump administration that negotiations with Congress have resulted in a budget paralysis, as in early 2019 a struggle with Congress over its determination to raise funds to build a border wall with Mexico it resulted in a closure that lasted more than a month.
Despite threats looming over the U.S. economy, the New York Stock Exchange closed higher ahead of expectations generated by the start of covid-19 vaccination in the country.