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.
Christopher Ewing is the founder and Chief Strategy Officer of One Inc. A long time entrepreneur raised in Sacramento, CA, Christopher has a proven track-record building effective teams and partnerships to deliver innovative solutions to customers.
Christopher began his insurance industry career in 2003 as the President and CEO of Keenan Holdings. He also served as the CTO and General Counsel of Cost-U-Less Insurance Center, growing the company from 32 locations to more than 100. Chris was also the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Stonewood Insurance Services, Co-Founder and CTO of ClearSide General Insurance Services, and Co-Founder, General Counsel, and Executive VP of GreenPath Insurance Company.
Christopher received his Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of California, Riverside, and his Juris Doctor from University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.
Mark Snyder is the principal consultant and claims subject matter expert at Hi Marley.
He is a proven leader and P&C insurance claims optimization expert with significant experience in quality management program design, insurtech and digital strategy operationalization, operational transformation, project management and training development and delivery.
Mark also has deep claims technical handling, management and auditing knowledge and skills across all major lines of business and select specialty lines.He previously held leadership positions with Ohio Casualty, Liberty Mutual, Athenium Analytics and Aon Inpoint.
Elad Tsur, chief AI officer at Applied Systems, is a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about bridging the gap between technology and business – specifically in insurance and other financial services.
Prior to joining Applied Systems in 2024, he was co-founder and CEO of Planck, where he helped create an AI-based data platform for commercial insurance that enables insurers to grow new and organic business while drastically reducing their loss and expense ratios.
Before launching Planck in 2015, Elad started BlueTail Corporation, which delivered the first comprehensive AI platform for customer relationship management. Acquired by Salesforce.com in 2012, today it is known as Salesforce Einstein.
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.