The United States President Donald Trump, on Monday morning, signed the country’s $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief and government funding bill into law.
The move averted an expected government shutdown.
A shutdown means federal law enforcement officers, working under COVID conditions don’t get paid. It may also have slowed the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.
But Trump’s signature means the government is now funded through September 30, 2021.
The move came after the American president threatened not to sign the bill. In a video posted to Twitter on Tuesday, he complained that the bill contained too many provisions unrelated to the pandemic. He called for the increase of direct payments to Americans from $600 to $2,000.
His initial refusal to sign the bill caused a handful of Covid relief protections to expire Saturday midnight. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which impacted a total of 7.3 million workers, expired.
Trump’s signature of the $900 billion Covid relief package extends unemployment benefits for millions of jobless gig-workers and independent contractors, as well as the long-term unemployed.
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In a statement early Monday morning, Trump signalled that he signed the relief bill only after securing a commitment for the Senate to consider legislation to increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, did not reference that commitment in his own statement Monday morning praising the president for signing the relief bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had seized on Trump’s call for $2,000 direct payments to Americans last week and brought to the floor a standalone bill that would have boosted the amount for relief checks on Thursday. Republicans in the house, however, swiftly rejected the bill over deficit concerns.
The Democratic-led House is set to vote on the expansion of the direct payments on Monday.
In a statement Monday morning, Pelosi called on Trump to “immediately call” on Republicans “to end their obstruction and to join him and Democrats in support of our stand-alone legislation to increase direct payment checks to $2,000.”
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