US Congress passes $892bn pandemic stimulus, but Trump threatens to veto aid bill

• Financial

Following a month-long garrulous debate over a new round of pandemic stimulus bill, US Congress had passed a $892 billion stimulus package on Tuesday in a bid to flesh up the country’s pandemic response alongside to shore up its ailing economy, while the departing US President Donald Trump, who had already declined to sign the relief bill late in the day and asked for a $2,000 in one-time pay-check rather than a proposed $600 in one-off pay-out, had signed the stopgap bill in order to prevent a Government shutdown earlier in the day.

Besides, Trump had threatened to veto the relief bill and called on certain amendments including a hike in one-off paycheck as beforementioned. On top of that, according to US Congressional lawmakers, the package included a $892 billion in a much-required pandemic relief bill alongside a funding for the federal Government to prevail a shutdown, while the fiscal package totalled to a combined $2.3 trillion in expenses that would run over the rest of fiscal year ending on September 30, 2021, while the bill had also been sent to the US President Donald Trump who has been expected to sign the bill in order to turn it into a federal law as early as Tuesday night.

US Congress agrees on pandemic stimulus bill; sceptics call on Biden to do more

In point of fact, the $2.3 trillion package passed in the US Congress late on Tuesday followed a cascade of compromises from both Republicans and Democrats, while the lawmakers had agreed to sidestep an additional Democratic-backed funds for the hardest-hit states from the pandemic outbreak and the Republicans had backed out from financing a corporate liability protection bill.

Besides, the wide-ranging Govt. stimulus bill would involve a one-off $600 pay out to most of the American adults alongside an additional $300 in state unemployment benefits. Nonetheless, several advocacy groups alongside others were quoted saying that the new round of Government stimulus bill would be nowhere near enough to address the requirements of millions of Americans who had been making their ends meets through the state unemployment benefits amid a sheer hike in lay-offs, while many had called on the President-elect Joe Biden to pass another round of stimulus package after taking over the Oval Office on January 20.

Meanwhile, underwhelming the latest leg of Government stimulus bill, US Conference of Mayors President and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said in a statement, “It’s good news that relief is on the way for American families, small businesses, and the unemployed.

But it is simply not good enough. ” US Treasury’s Mnuchin said to the reporters late in the day that a one-off $600 in pandemic relief bill would be sent to people as early as by next week.