Home Tags Posts tagged with "covid relief bill"

covid relief bill

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has rejected calls from an unlikely alliance of President Donald Trump, congressional Democrats and some Republicans to boost coronavirus aid.

The House of Representatives, held by the Democrats, had voted to increase aid cheques to Americans to $2,000.

Dozens of House Republicans, reluctant to defy President Trump, backed the increase.

Republican Mitch McConnell’s objections mean there will not be a direct vote on a revised Covid aid bill in the Senate.

He said raising aid cheques would be “another fire hose of borrowed money”.

The move could in effect kill off President Trump’s demands for bigger cash handouts to help the economy recover.

Congress had initially agreed to the smaller $600 payments in a Covid relief and government funding bill.

President Trump sent that back to Capitol Hill before Christmas, saying the stimulus payment should be higher.

He eventually, and grudgingly, signed the original bill with the lower payments into law on December 27, but has continued to demand more money.

On December 28, House Democrats – usually sworn political foes of President Trump – passed the measure for $2,000 cheques that he requested.

The president tweeted on December 29: “Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2,000 payments ASAP.”

President Trump Threatens to Block Covid-19 Relief Bill

The total number of people who have died with Covid in the US stands at nearly 350,000. There are concerns that the figure could continue to surge following Christmas and New Year gatherings.

California meanwhile became the second state to confirm a case of the new strain of the virus, considered to be highly contagious. The first case of new variant of coronavirus was confirmed in Colorado.

Mitch McConnell rejected Democrats’ calls for the upper chamber to vote on the $2,000 cheques package passed by their counterparts in the House.

The Kentucky senator said the bill had “no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate”.

Speaking in the chamber on December 30, he said: “The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats’ rich friends who don’t need the help.”

Instead Mitch McConnell offered to roll the proposal for bigger cheques into another bill to include other measures that have been requested by President Trump but raised objections from Democratic leaders.

One would end legal protection for tech companies, known as Section 230. The other would set up a bipartisan commission to investigate President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of systemic electoral fraud.

Democrats said Mitch McConnell’s proposal was merely a legislative poison pill designed to kill higher stimulus payments.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, said on the Senate floor: “All we are asking for is a vote. What is the problem?

“If you want to vote against $2,000 checks for your state, vote against it.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said: “What we’re seeing right now is leader McConnell trying to kill the cheques – the $2,000 cheques desperately needed by so many American families.”

The GOP usually professes an opposition to government spending as an article of faith, but some of its top conservative senators have rallied behind President Trump’s call for $2,000 cheques.

They include Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri, both considered possible presidential contenders in 2024.

Image source Flickr

President Donald Trump failed to sign the Covid relief bill into law leaving millions of Americans without their unemployment benefits.

President-elect Joe Biden had warned of “devastating consequences” if President Trump continued to delay signing but the December 26 deadline has now passed.

Unemployment benefits and a ban on evictions will be affected.

The package worth $900 billion was approved by Congress after months of difficult negotiations and compromises.

President Trump says he wants to give people bigger one-off payments.

The bill includes the payment of $600 to Americans earning less than $75,000 a year.

President Trump Threatens to Block Covid-19 Relief Bill

President Trump says he wants Americans to receive $2,000 but Republicans in Congress refused to agree to the change.

In a tweet on December 26, President Trump again defended his position on the issue, blaming China for the coronavirus outbreak.

The coronavirus economic relief is part of a $2.3 trillion spending package that includes $1.4 trillion for normal federal government spending. A partial government shutdown will begin on December 29 unless legislators pass a stopgap bill before then – but this would not include coronavirus aid and President Trump would still have to sign it.

About 14 million Americans would be affected by a lapse in unemployment benefit payments and new stimulus cheques.

In a strongly worded statement published on the transition website on December 26, Joe Biden described President Trump’s refusal to sign the bill as an “abdication of responsibility”.

He said: “It is the day after Christmas, and millions of families don’t know if they’ll be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority.”

Joe Biden praised the example of members of Congress in compromising and reaching a bipartisan agreement, adding: “President Trump should join them, and make sure millions of Americans can put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads in this holiday season.”

President Trump had reiterated his objection to the bill, saying: “I simply want to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill.”

The coronavirus aid relief bill – with the larger budget bill rolled in – overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives and Senate on December 21 but, a day later, President Trump issued an implied veto threat, describing the package as a “disgrace” full of “wasteful” items.

He baulked at the annual aid money for other countries in the federal budget, arguing that those funds should instead go to struggling Americans.

According to his schedule, President Trump spent Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida with his family, where he held “many meetings and calls”.