Trump announced the signing in a statement Sunday evening.
The massive bill includes $ 1.4 trillion to fund government agencies through September and includes other priorities at the end of the session, such as money for starving cash transit systems and an increase in the benefits of food stamps.
The bill, now signed by the president, includes $ 600 checks for Americans earning less than $ 75,000 a year. Democrats wanted bigger stimulus controls, but representatives from the White House and the GOP fought to reduce stimulus controls.
Second stimulus checks: see how much money you could receive under the new stimulus account
After both sides agreed and passed the bill, Trump then announced that the $ 600 checks were too small. He said he wouldn’t sign it until the amount was increased to $ 2,000.
On Sunday, Trump signed the bill without changing the amount of the checks. In a statement, however, he called on Congress to revise the bill more.
“I will sign the Omnibus and Covid Package with a strong message making clear to Congress that wasteful items should be removed. I will return to Congress a redefined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal request for revocation to the Congress, in which I insist that those funds be removed from the account, ”he wrote.
He reiterated that he wanted a bill that raised $ 2,000 to Americans.
Democratic leaders in both houses supported the $ 2,000 control plan, but the GOP leadership rejected it. In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell applauded Trump for signing the package and avoiding a closure “at a time when our nation could not afford one.”
Democrats promise more aid will come as soon as President-elect Joe Biden takes office, but Republicans are signaling a wait-and-see attitude.
This is a breaking news update. Check back soon for more details.
Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet fell overnight as President Donald Trump refused to sign a year-end statement for COVID relief and spending that was considered a closed deal before his sudden objections.
The fate of the bipartisan package remained in the dark on Sunday as Trump continued to demand greater COVID emergency checks and complained of “pork” spending. Without the widespread funding provided by the massive measure, a government shutdown would occur when funds run out at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday.
“It’s a game of chess and we’re pawns,” said Lanetris Haines, a self-employed single mother of three in South Bend, Indiana, who would lose her $ 129 weekly allowance unless Trump signed or passed the package before the law. unlikely quest for change.
Washington has been reeling since Trump slammed the deal after it received widespread approval in both houses of Congress and after the White House assured Republican leaders that Trump would back the deal.
Instead, he contested the bill’s plan to provide $ 600 COVID checks to most Americans – insisting it should be $ 2,000. House Republicans quickly rejected that idea during a rare Christmas Eve session. But Trump has not been affected despite the nation being in the throes of a pandemic.
“I just want to get our amazing people $ 2,000 instead of the meager $ 600 in the bill right now,” Trump tweeted Saturday from Palm Beach, Florida, where he spends the vacation. “Stop the billions of dollars in ‘pork’ too.” ‘
President-elect Joe Biden called on Trump to sign the bill immediately as the midnight deadline approached Saturday for two federal programs providing unemployment assistance.
“It’s the day after Christmas and millions of families don’t know if they will be able to make ends meet as President Donald Trump refuses to sign an emergency economic aid bill passed by Congress by an overwhelming and bipartisan majority,” said Biden. said in a statement. He accused Trump of “relinquishing responsibility” with “devastating consequences.”
“I have spoken to people who fear they will be thrown from their homes over the Christmas holidays, and that could still happen if we don’t sign this bill,” said Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat.
Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at Brookings Institution, has calculated that 11 million people would immediately lose aid from the programs without additional aid; millions more would use up other unemployment benefits within weeks.
Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, said the number could be closer to 14 million as unemployment has increased since Thanksgiving.
“All these people and their families will suffer if Trump doesn’t sign the damn bill,” Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Liberal Economic Policy Institute, tweeted Wednesday.
How and when people would be affected by the decline depended on the state they lived in, the program they relied on, and when they applied for benefits. In some states, people with regular unemployment insurance would continue to receive payments under a program that extends benefits when the unemployment rate exceeds a certain threshold, Stettner said.
However, about 9.5 million people relied on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which ended completely on Saturday. That program made unemployment insurance available to freelancers, handymen, and others who were not normally eligible. After receiving their final checks, those recipients would no longer be able to ask for help, Stettner said.
While payments could be received retroactively, any gap would mean more hardship and uncertainty for Americans who had already grappled with bureaucratic delays, often exhausting much of their savings to stay afloat while awaiting payments.
They were people like Earl McCarthy, a father of four who lives in South Fulton, Georgia, and has relied on unemployment since he lost his job as a sales representative for an upscale senior community. He said he would have no income by the second week of January if Trump refused to sign the bill.
McCarthy said he had already burned out much of his savings by waiting five months to receive about $ 350 a week in unemployment benefits.
“The whole experience was horrible,” said McCarthy. “I shudder to think that if I hadn’t saved anything or had an emergency fund in those five months, where would we have been?”
He added, “It will be difficult if the president does not sign this bill.”
The bill, awaiting Trump’s signing in Florida, would also trigger a $ 300 weekly federal supplement to unemployment benefits.
Sharon Shelton Corpening had hoped the extra help would allow her 83-year-old mother, with whom she lives, to stop eating her Social Security benefits in order to earn their $ 1,138 rent.
Corpening, who lives in the Atlanta area, had launched a freelance content strategy company that just got off the ground before the pandemic hit, causing some of its contracts to fall through. She was paid about $ 125 a week under the pandemic unemployment program and says she wouldn’t be able to pay her bills in about a month. This despite her temporary work for the US Census and as an election officer.
“We are on the brink,” said Corpening, who is lobbying for Unemployment Action, a Center for People’s Democracy project to fight for relief. ‘If that’s another month. Then everything is gone. ‘
In addition to the unemployment benefits that have already expired, Trump’s continued refusal to sign the bill would lead to the lapse of eviction protections and a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters, as well as money for lack of money transit systems and distribution of vaccines.
The relief was also linked to a $ 1.4 trillion government funding bill to keep the federal government functioning through September, which would mean not signing it before midnight on Tuesday would result in a federal shutdown.
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Olson reported from New York.
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