[11][12][13] Following the approval of some $2.5 trillion in stimulus in March and April, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cautioned against any further spending.

[23] The next day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer endorsed a $908 billion bipartisan plan.

[24][b] A number of Republican senators subsequently endorsed it, with Lindsey Graham (R-SC) saying he had discussed it "extensively" with Trump.

[32][33] The next week, two controversial measures from both parties were moved into a separate $160 billion bill called the Bipartisan State and Local Support and Small Business Protection Act of 2020.

[38] At the request of Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA), the bill was modified to require congressional approval of future emergency lending through the Fed, and to rescind about $429 billion in unused CARES Act funding.

133, previously the United States-Mexico Economic Partnership Act, as a legislative vehicle, amending the bill to contain its current text.

[42] During the last few days, logistical challenges arose as the bill, which consisted of some 5,500 pages of text, proved difficult to physically assemble due to printer malfunctions and a corrupted computer file.

[48] Trump was largely absent from the final series of negotiations on the pandemic relief and omnibus legislation,[49][50] as he had been focusing almost exclusively on promoting his claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him.

[12] Trump's last-minute statement shocked Congress[51] and surprised administration officials, including Mnuchin, who was heavily involved in the negotiations.

[60][61] Many figures in both parties urged Trump to sign the bill,[62][63] and planned fallback strategies to keep the government open in case he did not.

[65] On the evening of December 27, after coming under heavy pressure from Democrats and Republicans, Trump signed the bill into law without his demands being met.

[75] Later that day, McConnell introduced legislation combining increased payments with two other Trump demands: a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (which the president had wanted to include in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021), and the establishment of a voter fraud study commission.

[80][81] On January 1, 2021, Schumer again called for a vote on $2,000 stimulus checks but was blocked by a Republican senator—ending prospects for the act to be approved by the 116th Congress.

It is a follow-on to such actions as the CARES Act and Paycheck Protection Program passed in March 2020, and comes after eight months of mostly little progress in negotiations between the different parties and houses of Congress.

[107] This was an increase from the amount appropriated in the previous fiscal year, but lower than the bills approved by the House and Senate.

[108] Divisions O through Z and AA through FF contains additional legislation (called "authorizing matters") unrelated to coronavirus relief and annual appropriations.

[98][107] The addition of such provisions to omnibus spending legislation ("loading up the Christmas tree") is common toward the end of a congressional session.

[130][131][132] An analysis by economists Adam Hersh and Mark Paul, commissioned by the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, concluded that Congress would need to enact a near-term stimulus about four times larger in order to obtain a full recovery.

[130] Economists stated that the $25 billion in rental assistance programs allocated by the bill were insufficient to prevent a looming eviction crisis.