Conservatives left frustrated as Congress passes big spending bills

Weeks before the midterm elections, conservatives in the House are gaining little traction on fiscal issues as Congress passed one spending bill after another in bipartisan votes. It's a significant shift from the last few years, when the House Freedom Caucus often threw a wrench into appropriations plans with demands to cut mandatory spending and advance other conservative priorities. “It’s a little bit frustrating right now,” said Rep. Mark Walker, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest GOP caucus in the House. Walker issued a warning last week that some RSC members may vote against a package of spending bills the House is due to consider when it returns to session. The package includes defense and labor appropriations and a continuing resolution to keep the parts of the government not yet funded by spending bills running past Oct. 1. But Walker admits that he and other RSC members opposed to the package would seem to have little hope in blocking it. The package passed in the Senate on Tuesday in an overwhelming 93-7 vote. In the House, an earlier package of spending bills passed in a 377-20 just last week, with both Democrats and Republicans backing it. “I don’t know that conservatives have a whole lot of leverage here, so I haven’t given it as much thought as I have given to other things, because most of the Democrats will vote for this and smile very big,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. Several factors have left conservatives less well-positioned to extract concessions. Congressional leadership strategically bundled funding for the labor bill, a major Democratic priority, with funding for the Pentagon, a major Republican priority. For conservatives, voting against the package would mean voting against an increase in defense spending and a raise for the troops...MORE