Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump signed a new $ 900 billion stimulus plan on the U.S. economy on Sunday, after several days of refusing to do so and millions of people they would lose their unemployment benefits.
Trump signed the $ 2.3 trillion bill Sunday afternoon at his Sea-to-Lake (Florida) residence, where he is on vacation, the White House confirmed.
This package, known as the omnibus, includes the second stimulus plan approved this year in the US and $ 1.4 trillion to fund the Administration through September 2021.
After five days of refusing to sign the bill and demanding changes, Trump apparently stepped back to prevent Monday night from running out of funds for the Administration and hundreds of thousands of employees seeing the government suspended. his salary.
“I sign this package of omnibus and covid-19 with a resounding message that makes it clear to Congress that points of the law that are a waste must be removed” from the text, Trump said in a statement.
The president said that while he is signing the bill, he is still waiting for Congress to approve a change in the point that includes sending a single payment of $ 600 to millions of taxpayers to offset the damage of the bill. pandemic.
After his own government negotiated the $ 600 amount, Trump demanded to raise that amount to $ 2,000, and in his statement recalled that the lower house had planned to vote this Monday to make that change, which the leaders Republicans oppose it.
Trump assured that the Republican-controlled Senate “will begin the process of voting to increase the checks to $ 2,000.”
But in a later statement, Republican majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, limited himself to thanking Trump for signing the bill, and did not mention any possible vote by senators to make any changes.
Trump also assured that he will return to Congress the Administration’s funding plan with underlined parts for changes to be made, but it is not clear that lawmakers need to change anything.
Trump’s change of heart came five days after he threatened to block the law on Tuesday if several points were not changed, from an increase in direct payments to Americans to a reduction in foreign aid.
His refusal to sign the law caused two programs that provided unemployment benefits to 10 to 14 million Americans to expire this Sunday, and will now be renewed when the law goes into effect.
Trump’s blockade of the bill earned him criticism from several members of his party, and if it had lasted until January 1, it would have led to the end of a national veto on evictions, which would have affected some 30 million people. Americans.
The bailout signed by Trump includes a $ 300-a-week unemployment benefit, $ 325 billion in aid to businesses ($ 275 billion for payroll), $ 45 billion for public transportation systems, $ 82 billion for schools and billions in food stamps, aid to tenants, and for the distribution of vaccines.