Trump threatens never to sign COVID-19 Bill, wants bigger stimulus checks

US President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday (Dec 22) not to sign a US$892 billion coronavirus relief Bill that includes desperately needed money for individual Americans, saying it ought to be amended to improve the amount in the stimulus checks.

US government functions are being funded on a non permanent basis through Dec 28, looking forward to the US$1.4 trillion in federal spending for fiscal 2021 that's also the main bill.

Failure to either pass another stopgap bill or override a possible Trump veto of the legislation could cause a partial government shutdown. 

The threat by the outgoing Republican president, who has less than a month left in office, throws into turmoil a bipartisan effort in Congress to provide help for people whose lives have already been upended by the pandemic.

"The Bill they are actually planning to send back again to my desk is a lot different than anticipated," Trump said in a video posted on Twitter. 

"It really is a disgrace."

Both the US House of Representatives and the Senate passed the legislation on Monday night.

Trump said he wants Congress to improve the amount in the stimulus checks to US$2,000 for folks or US$4,000 for couples, rather than the "ridiculously low" US$600 for individuals currently in the Bill.

Trump also complained about profit the legislation for foreign countries, the Smithsonian Institution and fish breeding, among other spending.

"I'm also asking Congress to immediately remove the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and also to send me a suitable Bill, or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And perhaps that administration will get me," explained Trump, who has continuing to press baseless claims that he won re-election in November.

Trump, who will keep office on Jan 20 when President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, didn't utilize the word "veto" in his statement.

The 92-6 vote in the Senate and the 359-53 vote in the House both are well over the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto, though some Republicans might balk at overriding a veto if Trump used that power.

A Bill could be amended if congressional leadership really wants to do so. If they don't, Trump's choices happen to be to sign the Bill into law, veto it, or perform nothing and allow it become law.

If the Bill is amended, doing this by Dec 28 could be very difficult. 

It took months for the parties to consent to the thousands of elements in not merely the coronavirus aid part, but the US$1.4 trillion agreement to invest in a lot of the US government.

Even if leadership really wants to amend the bill, it still would need to be voted after by the full House and Senate. Also, many Republicans might balk at the US$2,000 direct payments because that could boost the expense of the bill to more than US$1 trillion.

2 yrs ago, a record-long, 35-day government shutdown was sparked when Congress sent Trump a government spending bill it thought he'd support, and then see him reject it over what he said was insufficient funding for building his vaunted US-Mexico border wall.

Trump also said a good two-year tax break for corporate meal expenses was first "not enough" to greatly help struggling restaurants.

The White House didn't signal any objections to the legislation before it passed and gave every expectation that Trump would sign it. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was mixed up in negotiations over the bill.

White House officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's intentions.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a good tweet that Republicans wouldn't normally say during negotiations what sum Trump sought the stimulus checks to get. She said Democrats are ready to provide his proposal for $2,000 checks to the House floor for a vote this week. She didn't address Trump's other concerns.

Trump's complaints came just as the 5,500-page bill had been processed for sending to the White House for signing by the president, who's scheduled to keep on Wednesday afternoon to invest all of those other year at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump's video was taped in private at the White House, without reporters present, continuing a recently available boycott of appearing at public events where he might be exposed to questions about his failed attempt to challenge the results of the Nov. 3 election.