The (probably) last major act of an anti-spending Congress: A $1.3 trillion budget-busting bill
The more than 2,200-page spending bill — and signed by President Trump — gave the Pentagon its biggest spending increase in 15 years, a top GOP priority. But it also included full funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, despite Trump’s initial proposal to cut its funding from $465 million to $15 million.
.. More than 60 percent of Republicans in the House and the Senate voted for the legislation, a sign that the GOP might be returning to its big-spending ways of early last decade.
Back then, amid a major ramp-up in defense spending at the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Republicans accepted big increases in domestic spending as well and created a new entitlement within Medicare. GOP leaders at the time exploded the earmark system, allowing even the lowliest rank-and-file lawmakers to direct millions of dollars to pet projects in their districts. Republicans believed the big spending helped shore up their incumbents’ standing back home.
.. Now, the Republican-led decision to bust those caps for the next two years raises the specter that the tough talk on deficits applied only when Democrats held the White House.
“Had the 2016 election gone a different way and we had a Democratic president, and we controlled the House and Senate, I can’t imagine us being in a situation where we would vote tonight or tomorrow for a bill that’s going to add $2 trillion in debt,” Corker said.