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.
Todd Waletzki joined BenefitMall in March, 2015 as the President of the Payroll Division. Todd brings more than 25 years of finance and payroll related experience to the organization and is responsible for maintaining the excellence of payroll operations for BenefitMall. Todd previously held the role as chief operating officer of CompuPay (now BenefitMall) from 2010 to 2012 , where he was responsible for all payroll operational functions.
Todd received his Bachelor of Science in economics from Bemidji State University, and his Master of Science in Economics from Southern Illinois University. He has previously served as a College Instructor at Webster University and Southern Illinois University. Todd and his family currently resides in Dallas.
Nadya Knysh is a managing director at a1qa, which is a software testing provider helping clients including Fortune 500 companies release high-quality solutions. Nadya has a Master’s Degree in informatics, management and modeling and is a certified scrum master. Nadya strives to transfer the knowledge on the significance of QA processes for improving overall quality of the products and eliminating a financial loss due to failures detected.
Christine Runnegar is senior director, Internet Trust at the Internet Society, a global non-profit organization that promotes the open development, evolution and use of the Internet.
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.