WASHINGTON — Over 100 House Republicans voted against the spending bill that passed the lower chamber Wednesday night, and some conservatives say the Democrats had too much say over what was in it.
“Some of the language prohibits that $1.5 billion from being used to build a wall. And so that’s pretty much a finger in the eye of those of us that want to secure our border and help the president keep his campaign pledge. So, I think that this bill is missing a lot of things that the president needs to keep his word,” Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King told The Daily Caller Wednesday night.
The House voted 309 to 118 to approve the $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, with 103 Republicans voting against it. The package puts $15 billion toward President Donald Trump’s military buildup and $1.5 billion into border security measures.
“This is a great deal for the president,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters before the vote.
King, however, said “I think they’ve shut the president up substantially…and almost all the Democrats vote for it. I voted no. I mean nobody even really tried to whip me on that. They knew I was a no. But this spending bill looks a lot like the last big one we did under John Boehner.”
He added, “It looked to me like the whip count was how do you keep how do you keep a majority of Republicans on board, when you know you get almost every Democrat. You know they started at the wrong place.”
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, however, saw the situation differently, saying, “Obviously, he’s supporting this because it provides more money to finish out existing initiatives and obviously, there’s a lot of support among members like me to help him finish out his work border security both long border and interior enforcement, so I see this just the first step,” Brady told TheDC.
Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks voted against the bill. He told TheDC, “There were a lot of things bad about this bill but there’s only one reason why. And that’s a filibuster in the Senate. The Democrats blackmailed us into having to do what we did here to keep the government open. We said we were going to keep the government open no matter what.”
Franks added, “We gave the ultimate leverage and they blackmailed us into coming up with a budget that is really a dirt and ice cream mixture…I voted no on this thing and not because I didn’t think the leadership tried. They did, but they’re going to have to stand up and speak to this issue of not being able to get an appropriations bill to the Senate floor.”
