That delay in the middle of the pandemic and during the holidays means millions of struggling Americans endured unnecessary stress and will have to wait longer for financial help.
Unemployment benefits lapsed yesterday for a week. A US government shutdown tomorrow has now only narrowly been avoided.
The coronavirus aid to people and small businesses was a compromise meant to be a temporary lifeline until the government changeover in January.
"It's a chess game and we are pawns," Lanetris Haines, a self-employed single mum in Indiana, who faced losing her US$129 weekly jobless benefit, told AP.
All this has been going on while Trump is at his golf resort in Florida and his deputy Mike Pence is holidaying in Colorado and while authorities in Nashville deal with an apparent suicide bombing. Police say a motive has yet to be determined.
The explosion, which turned a street in a city known for country music into a blackened battleground, is both shocking but hardly surprising after America's hellish year.
People have been under intense pressure and Trumpian politics has made a bad situation worse, while widening divisions. Many have feared eruptions of violence.
Trump made a late push for US$2000 ($2785) payments to people rather than the US$600 in the bill but Republican senators had only sought a low level of relief, even though millions are out of work and loaded with debt. Democratic leaders in Congress had sought trillions in aid for months and then compromised at the end.
Brinkmanship over Brexit was also part of finishing the deal between Britain and the European Union. British MPs will debate and vote on the framework of ground rules for the relationship between London and Brussels.
The world has changed significantly since the 2016 Brexit referendum.
We are in a nationalistic era of trade, security and diplomatic disputes between the US and China, the US and Europe, China and Canada, India and China and Australia and China.
The pandemic has caused countries to re-think their supplies of essential equipment for future planning. It has also accentuated differences between regions, which have approached the coronavirus in their own ways.
More geographically remote countries such as New Zealand and Australia have sought financial security with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement.
Although tied into Europe over decades, while it was a member the UK was arguably able to have its cake and eat it with a distinct, slightly apart political stance, yet still with the full economic benefits and a seat and say at the table.
As the world is increasingly dominated by the US, EU and China, Britain has rejected the wisdom of safety in numbers.
Amid disaster in 2020, there were bright spots.
Healthcare workers have put themselves in harm's way all year and are finally getting extra protection with vaccines produced in record time.
Another vaccine, the AstraZeneca/Oxford University shot that is coming here, is reportedly likely to gain approval in Britain as early as this week.
On Sunday, Hungary and Slovakia became the first countries on the European continent to start vaccinations with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab. France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Spain began yesterday.
Astronauts were launched from US soil for the first time in nearly a decade this year.
Three countries sent spacecraft to Mars, and samples from the moon and an asteroid were returned to Earth.
Politics, power and human nature can be massive obstacles, but we are still capable of awe-inspiring feats.
