President Donald Trump signed a bill containing $900 billion in pandemic relief, the White House said, triggering the flow of aid to individuals and businesses and averting the risk of a partial government shutdown on Tuesday.
In addition to aid to stem the economic effects of the pandemic, the legislation Congress passed Monday also includes $1.4 trillion in government spending to fund federal agencies through the end of the fiscal year in September. The government had been operating on temporary spending authority that expires after the end of the day Monday.
Anthony Macciola is chief innovation officer at North Carolina-based ABBYY, a global digital intelligence company. He holds more than 45 patents for technologies in mobility, text analytics, image processing, and process automation and is leading AI initiatives at ABBYY.
Marc Staut is chief innovation and technology officer at Boomer Consulting Inc.
Justin Turner is VP of Strategic Partnerships - Shipping (Global) at Cover Genius, the insurtech for embedded insurance that protects the global customers of the world’s largest digital companies including Booking Holdings, Descartes ShipRush and Intuit. XCover is also available at Amazon, eBay, and Shopee. In his role, Justin is responsible for leading and executing the company’s logistics strategy and creating value for partners by delivering a seamless insurance experience for their customers. Prior to Cover Genius, Justin was the Asia Pacific Head of Sales and Operational Marketing at Neopost Shipping and the Regional Chief Executive of global logistics companies Pacific Network and GP Logistics where he was responsible for leading the sales and operation teams and executing the company’s strategic direction. Justin has an executive MBA from RMIT University and dedicates time to volunteer as Vice President of his local community football club and as a contributor to the Surf Lifesaving Association.
The combined $2.3 trillion package was the product of intense negotiations, from which Trump was largely absent until he surprised lawmakers of both parties by demanding bigger stimulus payments for individuals after the bill was already passed.
Trump said in the statement announcing the signing that the GOP Senate had agreed to vote on increasing the $600 individual payments and two other, unrelated matters dealing with social media and his unfounded allegations of voter fraud.
His delay in signing it means those aid payments will likely be later than Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised and may cut a week from the supplemental unemployment benefits that were part of the package and scheduled to end in March.
The virus relief package will likely be the last major legislation signed by Trump, whose re-election hopes were dashed in large part due to his handling of the pandemic.
President-elect Joe Biden has said he will push for even more stimulus after taking office early next year, but it remains unclear whether Republicans in Congress would go along. Control of the Senate will be determined by the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan 5.
Lawmakers approved the government funding and additional relief at the last possible moment before they were set to leave Washington for a year-end break. Business leaders have called on Congress to pass more stimulus for months, saying that restaurants, theaters, mom-and-pop stores and airlines were being decimated by closures and restrictions as Covid-19 cases spiked in the U.S.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a relief deal on Sunday after more than a week of frantic talks sparked by a bipartisan group of senators who drafted their own compromise proposal and urged their leaders to act. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, representing the administration, also was involved in the talks.
Trump surprised even his fellow Republicans on Tuesday by tweeting a video saying that he wanted Congress to increase the size of stimulus payments for individuals to $2,000, from the $600 in the bill Congress passed. He also complained about federal spending on foreign aid and international programs, even though those funds were allocated as part of the bipartisan appropriations process for funding the government.