Congress dispersed for Christmas. President Donald Trump headed to Florida..
And there’s still no telling whether President Trump will, as he’s suggested via Twitter, whether he will veto the huge coronavirus relief/government spending bill.
Today Democrats in the House took the President and his demand for $2,000 in checks to individuals instead of the $600 in the bill seriously, and tried to pass an amendment to the coronavirus/spending bill to replace all reference to $600 checks with $2,000. On short notice, the bill would have required unanimous consent to move to the floor for vote, and Republicans in the House refused to let the bill advance.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has now scheduled a December 28 vote–unanimous consent isn’t necessary on that schedule–on the amendment.
December 28 also happens to be the deadline for funding the government. Spending authority runs out at midnight that day.
It’s impossible for the Senate to approve any bill under that schedule–even if the House passes it–before the December 28 deadline.
Meanwhile, the bill will be delivered to President Trump in Florida for his signature–or not. If the President doesn’t sign the bill by Monday, the government again could shut down.
Looking at the vote totals that passed the bills, both the Senate and the House would be likely to override a presidential veto.
But for there to be an override, there has to be a veto. President Trump could try to kill the bill without an actual veto by using his pocket veto and simply holding up action on the bill until it either expires or the current session of Congress does on January 6.
Remarkably, perhaps, the stock market didn’t show much reaction to all this hoo-hah in today’s short trading session.
At the 1 p.m. close in New York, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 0.35% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had advanced 0.23%. The NASDAQ Composite was higher by 0.26% and the NASDAQ 100 had gained 0.46%. Only the small cap Russell 2000 fell among the big domestic indexes with a slide of 016%.
The iShares MSCI Emerging Market ETF (EEM) fell 0.44% on continued news from China about a crack down on Alibaba (BABA). That stock was down 13.34% today. And the damage spread of the shares of other Chinese Internet giants with Tencent Holdings (TCEHY) down 5.30% and JD.cm (JD) off 1.14%.
