The $1.1 trillion U.S. government spending bill that
passed a test vote in the House of Representatives Thursday isn't everything Republicans wanted, but advances the party's principles "in the right direction," House Speaker Paul Ryan said on
Michael Medved's radio show.
"We scored major policy wins for conservatives — for our country — in this bill," Ryan said. "We advanced our principles. Did we advance all of our principles as far as we want to go? No, because we’re in divided government. But we did advance them in the right direction."
Ryan said it was important to get what was possible now, then fight for more later. "And I think we’ve set ourselves up for more success in 2016."
Conservatives didn't like the massive amount of spending in the bill, the failure to halt Syrian refugee resettlement or the continued funding of Planned Parenthood. But Ryan pointed to some of the gains.
The bill permanently lifts the ban on oil exports.
"That's something we’ve been trying to do for 40 years in this country," Ryan said. "When America can export its oil, that means we can compete with OPEC. We can put OPEC out of the business of controlling the world’s oil markets."
It also hurts Russian President Vladimir Putin's ability to sell oil and gas to Europe, he noted.
"We can become more independent. We can keep our prices low by having more control over the marketplace and create more jobs right here in America," he said. "Its fantastic for our foreign policy. It's really good for American jobs. And it's something we're actually getting done that we haven’t been able to do for decades."
The bill also prevents the Internal Revenue Service from "trying to pull the stunts they pulled in the 2012 election," when it held up tax-exempt application from conservative groups, Ryan said.
"The IRS allowed the Obama administration to turn them into a political weapon to infringe upon free speech and to intimidate conservative groups from exercising their free speech rights to participate in political speech," he said "So, we have a rider in here that prohibits the IRS from putting out a regulation on this."
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