Any notion that the Republican Party has any shard of integrity left on fiscal prudence vanished on Friday when President Trump begrudgingly signed the $1.3 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill after a bizarre veto threat that caught the West Wing and Capitol Hill off guard. While it gives the Pentagon its biggest funding boost in 15 years, it increased federal agency spending by more than $300 billion. The House and Senate passed the 2,200-page bill with most Members not even reading it. It is drawing criticism from conservative commentators like Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and Mark Levin.
Trump said in signing (with Vice President Pence standing in the wings after convincing him not to veto), "There are a lot of things that I’m unhappy about in this bill," he said at a news conference. "There are a lot of things that we shouldn’t have had in this bill. I will never sign another bill like this again.” Trump called it a "ridiculous situation."
Axios reports that Trump’s veto feint "is the hardest I've seen ever seen the base turn on Trump over anything,” according to a former Trump aide. "A big reason why people voted for him was because of his apparent willingness to stand up to the entrenched political class in both parties. Voters wanted a fighter who wouldn't back down to 'the swamp' like a 'typical politician.'
The Washington Post describes this “breathtaking contradiction”: After winning the House majority in the 2010 midterms, GOP lawmakers forced a major fiscal showdown with President Obama that ended with the Budget Control Act of 2011. That law was supposed to cut federal spending by nearly $1 trillion through a decade of spending caps to federal agency budgets.
“When Republicans are in power, it seems there is no conservative party,” said U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “The hypocrisy hangs in the air and chokes anyone with a sense of decency or intellectual honesty.” Out-going Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., added, “There are a lot of discussions about the fact that maybe the Republican Party has lost its soul.” And Matt House, communications director for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, tweeted, "I, for one, am tired of all the winning." Whew. - Brian A. Howey, publisher