Frustration is mounting for conservatives on the heels of another legislative loss — the 2017 spending bill.
Despite owning the Hill and the White House, Republicans are still no closer to repealing Obamacare and now are taking shrapnel for a $1.1 trillion spending bill that looks too much like Democratic legislation — continued funding for Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, refugee resettlement and a Puerto Rico bailout, the Washington Examiner reported.
And no funding for President Donald Trump's border wall.
This is not what conservatives envisioned when they swept the November elections.
"There are way too many Democratic priorities in here," Freedom Caucus lawmaker Dave Brat told the Examiner. "Everybody is left wondering, 'Did Trump win the election or not?' When we get a Republican president, we want to do Republican policy. Where is it?"
Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said: "What I'm hearing from a lot of my constituents is, 'We gave you the White House, we gave you the Senate, we gave you the House. Why does this spending package appear to be driven by more of a left-leaning agenda than a conservative-leaning agenda?'"
Conservatives off the Hill have taken to Twitter to express their tensions:
So though Republicans successfully averted a federal shutdown — Democrats vowed to block any spending bill that included border wall funding — they allowed the minority party to dictate terms on when, exactly, conservative principles will get into the federal budget.
"Now conservatives will be told that we have to punt until September to deliver on those promises. That won't happen either unless Republican leaders are willing to call the Democrats' bluff," Dan Holler, vice president of communications at Heritage Action, told the Examiner.