After Congress passed the bill with large bipartisan support late last Monday, Trump threw Washington into chaos by suddenly raising an objection to the size of a new round of direct payments, which came as news to his own aides who had negotiated them with Congress. He demanded lawmakers raise to the amount to $2,000, as also criticized other elements he called “pork” included within the mammoth spending package, including routine annual foreign aid payments.
Trump reiterated his criticism of the bill Saturday, tweeting, “I simply want to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill.”
The Covid-19 aid package currently includes $600 in direct payments to Americans who earned less than $75,000 in the previous tax year.
The amount represented a compromise between Democrats, who wanted larger checks, and Republicans, many of whom opposed additional direct payments.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who proposed the $600 checks and personally negotiated the stimulus package with congressional leadership, said in an interview with CNBC on Dec. 21 that Americans could see the checks quickly. That requires the president to sign the bill.
The House, where Republicans blocked Democrats from mounting a hasty vote to raise the amount of the checks to meet the president's demand, is expected to consider on Monday a stop-gap measure to avert a federal shutdown and keep the government running until President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20.
Biden called on Trump to sign the bill in a strongly-worded statement Saturday, calling the president's failure to do so an "abdication of responsibility" with "devastating consequences."
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., also criticized the president for his stance Sunday, saying, "Time is running out.”
Trump should sign the bill “because you don’t get everything you want, even if you’re the president of the United States,“ he said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump has been spending the holiday at Mar-a-Lago, his private resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and on Sunday visited his golf course, Palm Beach International Golf Club, according to the traveling press pool report.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/co...
Posted By: Steve Williams
Sunday, December 27th 2020 at 12:38PM
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