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The outgoing US president, Donald Trump, signed a new stimulus plan to the US economy worth 900,000 million dollars this Sunday, after several days refusing to do so and millions of people losing their unemployment benefits .
Trump signed the $ 2.3 trillion bill on Sunday afternoon at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, where he is on vacation, the White House confirmed.
That package, known as the omnibus, includes the second stimulus plan approved this year in the US and 1.4 trillion dollars to finance the Administration until September 2021.
After five days of refusing to sign the bill and demanding changes, Trump apparently backed down to prevent funds for the Administration running out on Monday night and hundreds of thousands of employees having their pay suspended.
“I sign this omnibus and covid-19 package with a resounding message that makes it clear to Congress that wasteful points of the law have to be withdrawn” of the text, Trump said in a statement.
The president assured that, although he is signing the bill, he still hopes that Congress will approve a change in the point that contemplates sending a one-time payment of $ 600 to millions of taxpayers to offset the ravages of the pandemic.
After his own government negotiated the amount of $ 600, Trump demanded to raise that amount to $ 2,000, and in his statement recalled that the Lower House planned to vote this Monday to make that change, something that Republican leaders oppose. .
Trump assured that the Senate, controlled by the Republicans, “will begin the process to vote to increase the checks to $ 2,000.”
But in a subsequent statement, Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell simply thanked Trump for signing the bill, not mentioning any possible Senate vote to make any changes.
Trump also assured that he will return the Administration’s funding plan with underlined parts to Congress for changes to be made, but it is not clear that lawmakers will modify anything.
Trump’s change of mind came five days after he threatened Tuesday to block the law if several points were not changed, from increasing direct payments to Americans to a reduction in foreign aid.
His refusal to sign the law caused two programs that provided unemployment benefits to between 10 and 14 million Americans to expire this Sunday, and will now be renewed when the law enters into force.
Trump’s blocking of the bill drew criticism from various members of his party, and had it lasted until January 1, it would have led to the end of a national veto on evictions, affecting some 30 million Americans.
The bailout that Trump signed includes an unemployment subsidy of $ 300 a week, 325,000 million in aid to companies (275,000 million of them for payroll), 45,000 million for public transport systems, 82,000 million for schools and thousands of million in food stamps, renter assistance and vaccine distribution.
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