Trump decides at the last minute to approve the new stimulus plan for the US economy
US President Donald Trump has unexpectedly signed a new $900 billion stimulus plan for the US economy. The approval of this bill is received with great surprise, as the president has launched harsh criticism of this agreement, claiming that economic aid was "ridiculously low" and that it was being "wasted" on other issues to the detriment of the Americans.
This new aid package, renamed the omnibus, is the second stimulus plan approved in the United States this year, which also includes a major financing project until September 2021 for the Administration of the president-elect, Joe Biden.
No explanation has been given from the White House as to why the president suddenly decided to back down and sign into law a bill he had blocked for nearly a week. Finally, Trump signed the bill, while on holiday in Florida, on a weekend in which he had allowed unemployment benefits to end for 14 million Americans.
"I am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, add money for PPP, return our airline workers to their jobs, add much more money for vaccine distribution and much more," Trump said in a statement.
The U.S. president has called this new stimulus plan "insufficient" and via his Twitter account demanded that Congress approve a change on Monday to provide a one-time payment of $600 to millions of taxpayers to offset the ravages of the pandemic. "I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for couples," he wrote on his social networks.
After Trump signed the bill, Democrats attacked him and explained that his decision to prolong the process for days was detrimental to many Americans.
"The President's futile delay in passing the aid legislation cost millions of Americans the equivalent of a week's worth of pandemic-related unemployment assistance they desperately need," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.). "Their stagnation only intensified the anxiety and hardship of workers and families who are collateral damage in their political games. Now, people will have to wait even longer for direct payments and other vital support to arrive".
Finally this bailout signed by Trump, in extremis, includes $600 in direct payments for adults earning up to $75,000 a year and children - or $2,400 for a family of four - $284.45 billion in loans for small businesses, $25 billion in direct rental assistance, $82 billion for education funding, $45 billion for public transportation systems, and $13 billion for increased food stamps and child nutrition benefits. The bill also extends the moratorium on evictions for another month.
