By Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON / PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – On Monday, Democrats in the US Congress will try to force the expansion of $ 2,000 pandemic relief payments to Americans after President Donald Trump dropped out of a fight with lawmakers. that could have closed the federal government.
In a sudden reversal on Sunday night, Trump sanctioned the $ 2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package law, restoring unemployment insurance for millions of Americans and providing funds to keep government agencies up and running.
Trump, who leaves office on January 20 after losing the November election to President-elect Joe Biden, backed down from his threat to block the bill, which was passed by Congress last week after he was pressured by lawmakers from both sides.
The Republican president, who played golf on Sunday and remained out of public view despite the emergence of a crisis in the government, last week called the bill “disgrace” and demanded that Congress change it to increase the size of stimulus checks for Americans in distress from $ 600 to $ 2,000 at the same time, cutting some other spending.
It was not immediately clear why Trump, who refused to grant defeat to Biden, changed his mind about the stimulus package. His surprise and last-minute resistance threatened to inject further chaos into the final stretch of his presidency.
Despite this, Democratic lawmakers who have a majority in the House of Representatives and have long wanted $ 2,000 relief checks hope to use a rare point according to Trump to advance the proposal – or at least put registered Republicans against it – into a vote on Monday.
Many of Trump’s Republican comrades are opposed to higher payments, and Trump may not have the leverage to transfer them. The issue seems unlikely to gain traction in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Many economists agree that the bill’s financial aid should be greater to get the economy moving again, but say that immediate support for Americans affected by the coronavirus blockade is still urgently needed.
After signing the project behind closed doors at his Florida beach club, Trump sought to put the best face on his descent, saying he was signing it with “a strong message that makes it clear to Congress that useless items need to be removed. “
“A lot more money is coming,” he insisted in a statement, although he did not provide anything to support that promise.
With less than a month in office, Trump is unlikely to get his Republican colleagues to support the extra money for individuals or to persuade Democrats to accept spending cuts he says he wants elsewhere in his spending account, especially in foreign aid.
BITTER HOLIDAY
The unemployment insurance paid to about 14 million people through pandemic programs expired on Saturday, but will be restarted now that Trump has signed the bill.
The package includes $ 1.4 trillion in expenses to finance government agencies. Had Trump not signed the legislation, a partial government shutdown would have started on Tuesday, which would jeopardize the income of millions of government employees.
Democrats have accused Trump of deepening coronavirus-related difficulties in holding the bill.
Americans are going through a bitter holiday season with a pandemic that has killed almost 330,000 people in the United States and a daily death toll now well in excess of 3,000, the highest since the pandemic began.
The aid package also extends a moratorium on evictions that was due to expire on December 31, updates small business payroll support, provides funding to help reopen schools and help the vaccine transport and distribution industry.
Global stock prices soared in response to news that Trump had signed the stimulus plan and stepped back from a government spending crisis.
US S&P futures and Japan’s Nikkei index gained about 0.4%, and spot gold prices rose nearly 1%.
Also on Monday, lawmakers will seek to overturn Trump’s recent veto of a $ 740 billion bill for the Department of Defense. If successful, it would be the first revocation of the Trump presidency veto.
Trump said he vetoed the legislation, which has been passed every year since 1961, because he opposed liability protections for social media companies unrelated to national security and did not want to rename military bases with the names of generals who fought for the pro-slavery Confederation during the Civil War.
Although his eight previous vetoes were all upheld thanks to the support of Republicans, advisers said it seemed likely to be overturned. The bill passed the two houses of Congress with margins greater than the two-thirds majorities that would be required to override the president’s veto.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell in Washington and Steve Holland in Palm Beach. Written by Matt Spetalnick. Editing by Kieran Murray)