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- Conservatives are once again livid at the last-minute government funding bill, which they say will not include significant wins for their side.
- House and Senate leaders are finalizing a plan before funding runs out at midnight on Friday.
WASHINGTON — Another government funding deadline, another collective groan from the far-right conservatives in Congress.
Another effort by House and Senate leaders across both parties to cut a deal and whip the necessary votes for a bill that will be taken up in a short few days has once again left those on the fringes feeling angry and dissatisfied with the process.
"The leverage of conservatives on this particular initiative has been minimal and we have tried to negotiate around the edges, but frankly, they only go to Democrats for the majority of the votes," said North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, who chairs the influential House Freedom Caucus.
Many members of Congress have not even seen pieces of the text of the $1.3 trillion spending bill, which is slated to include a handful of provisions tacked on like the "Fix NICS" bill to bolster the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and funding for the Hudson River Gateway Project.
"There may be some nuggets in there that are real encouragements and would be conservative wins," Meadows said[2] on Tuesday said. "But I'm not real optimistic."
"Your Republic might have serious issues if elected Congressmen must scour twitter feeds of reporters covering leaks from anonymous senate staffers to know what's going to be in the 1,000page bill they will be asked to vote on in 24 hours," Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie wrote[3] on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.
Conservatives are not getting anything they want
The omnibus spending package is also not going far enough to address border security provisions that conservatives want, like funding for a wall along the US-Mexico border. Coupled with the spending projects elsewhere, many conservatives were enraged on Wednesday afternoon as the bill was being finalized.
"It is troubling when we get a tunnel and we don't get a wall," Meadows said. "And the last time I checked, the president didn't make any promises about getting a tunnel in any of his campaign stops — at least not in North Carolina's."
"I would just say Planned Parenthood gets money, the unconstitutional NICS program gets money, the Gateway Project gets money, the American taxpayer gets a trillion dollar deficit and no money for the wall," said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, himself a former chairman of the Freedom Caucus.
The inclusion of the "Fix NICS" bill, which incentivizes government agencies and states to update the background check system, is a particular sore spot for conservatives. The House passed the bill last year, but it was paired with a bill granting concealed carry reciprocity across state lines, a plan that was
