House Speaker Paul Ryan
House conservatives appreciate the way new House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., included them in the process of negotiating the spending bill, but they see the result as all too familiar.
"The end product here is just cleaning the barn; it's a disaster," Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., told Politico. "We're breaking our pledge on the budget caps to the American people, we've lost fiscal discipline, and we're throwing it all on the next generation."
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Ryan is "saying the right things," he said, and "lining it up to do the right things … and then leadership can't hijack the budget at the end of the year and throw the kitchen sink, which we just did."
Ryan said in a press conference Thursday, "I feel good about where we are in both the spending and tax bills that are being considered today and tomorrow as well. The spending bill had some big wins for the country ..."
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Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the process is on an upward curve.
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"I can tell you I've had more meaningful conversations with the speaker and leadership in the last couple of weeks than I think I have in the last couple years," he said.
The $1.1 trillion spending plan is accompanied by $680 million in tax breaks.
"Sadly, this bill does not adequately address the security issue, nor does it have the common sense, widely supported pro-life riders that we suggested," Rep. Jim Ordan, R-Ohio, told the Daily Signal.
One of the top conservative priorities was cutting off the flow of federal taxpayer dollars to abortion industry behemoth Planned Parenthood, which was found in in an undercover investigation to be selling body parts for profit.
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Another was stricter security for the flow of migrants from the Middle East who could include terrorists.
Rep. John Fleming, R-La., said it would have been simple to address some of the conservatives' concerns.
"I think the more riders that could have been added, the more you would've peeled Freedom Caucus members to support the bill," he said.
Ryan argued "no one gets exactly what they want" in the negotiations over the budget, but when far-left Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., calls it a "good product," conservatives are alarmed.
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"The product here is an F," Brat told the Signal.
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Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said more should have been done to address the concerns of voters.
The bill, he said, "contains dramatic changes to federal immigration law that would increase by as much as fourfold the number of low-wage foreign workers provided to employers under the controversial H-2B visa program. … It approves the president's request for increased refugee admissions, allowing him to bring in as many refugees as he wants … and allow[s] them access to unlimited welfare and entitlements at the taxpayer expense."
He continued, "Because of this bill, sanctuary cities will continue to get federal funds … illegal aliens will continue to get the tax credits … and the president's executive amnesty continues.
"The American people sent us to Washington … to protect their interests, to protect the people's interests, to ensure the defense of their families and to advance the common good, the public interest. They did not send us here to bow down to the president's lawless immigration policies nor to line the pockets of special interests and big business.
"We do we represent? This bill explains why Republican and Democratic voters are in open rebellion. They elect people that they believe are going to take action to protect their security, their jobs, their wages and what do they get? A bill that is worse than current law, goes in the opposite direction."
Security is one reason why billionaire Donald Trump, a Washington outsider, has been stomping all competition in most polls for the GOP nomination for president.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., said the bill reflects the interests of lobbyists rather than the people.
"Somebody on K Street wanted that, but Main Street didn't."
Critics noted hundreds of billions of dollars will be added to the national debt.
Trump has warned the U.S. is at risk of becoming "a large-scale version of Greece."
"We are doing damage to the fiscal health of the country by borrowing this mind-boggling amount at a time when the debt is so high," warned Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in Politico.
"It's absolutely at odds with the priority Republicans are making – the debt – when they're campaigning, and with the Republican budget that was passed out of the House."
The nation's debt of about $18 trillion, half of which was incurred under President Obama, is regarded by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., as the nation's greatest threat.
The borrowing even left some Democrats quaking.
"I'm not voting for it," said Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., "There are so many things in there that raise astounding debt."
The Washington Times points out that among the beneficiaries of federal money under the plan will be race horses, NASCAR racetracks, green-energy companies and oil giants, along with Planned Parenthood.
"It appears to meet the priorities the president outlined first at the beginning of this year," Jennifer Friedman, a White House spokeswoman, told CNBC.
The Hill reported the plan continues all funding for Planned Parenthood's abortion business, one of Obama's favorite causes.
The report said Planned Parenthood Vice President Dana Singiser praised congressional Democrats for "holding the line."
Not even a compromise that would have let states choose to fund Planned Parenthood or not was included.
Another of Obama's personal goals, spending billions of taxpayer dollars overseas for battling "climate change," even though tens of thousands of scientists have signed onto a statement that it poses no threat, was fully approved.
The bill doesn't formally block funding to the "Green Climate Fund," so Obama administration officials are expected to use discretionary funding streams to tax Americans for their political campaign on the issue worldwide.
The Weekly Standard, calling it a "lose-lose" for the American people, noted that it will make it harder to fight Obamacare, the massive tax-and-spend program adopted by only Democrat votes in 2010.
Obamacare has been in the court system ever since it was adopted through a questionable maneuver in which the Senate simply took the number off a previously approved House bill and slapped it on the thousands of pages of Obamacare, then adopted it.
It still faces further review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Hill also noted that a "cybersecurity" plan was inserted.
"It's a surveillance bill more than a cyber bill," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. "I'm going to vote against the omnibus as a consequence."
It would open the channels for businesses to share data with the government.
In a telling article, Jim Newell at Slate described the deal as "just like all of the ones that infuriated conservatives under [former House Speaker John] Boehner."
He continued, "Republican congressional majorities again will fail to deliver a high-profile, base-pumping, ideological victory over some nefarious aspect of the 'Obama agenda' on which conservatives had drawn a red line.
"Conservatives also lost on their most well-publicized demands that have dominated cable news. Language restricting Syrian and Iraqi refugee resettlement, defunding Planned Parenthood, or blocking President Obama's executive actions on immigration will not be included."
He concluded the result is "an awful lot like the packages that Boehner would have negotiated and the way in which he would have negotiated them."
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