A pox on both their houses!
The Republicans put on the Democrats jerseys as soon as the game is over.
WASHINGTON – Tea Party Republicans arrived in Washington seven years ago with a clear, loud message from angry voters: Slash spending. But once again, spending is going way up.
“Part of our job right now (is) that we keep pounding that Republicans still stand for fiscal responsibility,” said Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, a coalition of conservatives.
But he was on the losing side as the House early Friday cleared a massive two-year spending package that President Donald Trump quickly signed into law. Sixty-seven Republicans voted against the two-year budget plan that became law Friday, but 167 voted yes.
The bill could add as much as $320 billion to the debt over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and push the fiscal 2019 deficit past $1.2 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a research group. The deal included about $100 billion in offsets, not enough to assuage many conservatives.
It was one of the biggest deficit-busters since the 2009 economic stimulus plan that spent nearly $800 billion as the nation reeled from the Great Recession of 2007-09. Since then, other budget bills have been approved by familiar Republican-Democrat coalitions, with Tea Party loyalists usually opposed.
What stings this time is that for the first time since 2007, Republicans have controlled the House, Senate and White House for the past year.
Yet the Friday vote “represented one of the final frontal charges on spending, and conservatives lost,” said Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., who has long railed against ballooning deficits.
Via TNS