Senate Passes $1.8 Trillion Tax, Spending Package

The Senate easily approved a $1.8 trillion tax and spending package Friday on a vote of 65-33, sending the legislation to President Obama.

The package included the $1.1 trillion spending bill the House approved earlier in the day and a $680 billion tax deal the House passed Thursday.

Twenty-seven Republicans, 37 Democrats and one Independent voted in favor of the legislation. Twenty-six Republicans, six Democrats and one Independent opposed the deal. Two senators did not vote.

Conservatives had voiced frustration this week over the rush-to-pass and content of the year-end spending deal, saying it failed to reign in Obama’s initiatives, in particular his immigration agenda.

“Not only does this massive spending bill put a tremendous burden on the taxpayers by actually increasing spending, but it continues government funding for abortion mills like Planned Parenthood and allows more Syrian refugees to come into the United States without any safeguards in place,” Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) said in a statement following the vote.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said earlier in the week that the spending deal “represents a further disenfranchisement of the American voter.”

“There is a reason that GOP voters are in open rebellion.  They have come to believe that their party’s elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests but – as with this legislation, and fast-tracking the President’s international trade pact – openly hostile to them,” Sessions said.

Senate and House Leadership, however, praised the package as a win for Americans.

“This legislation helps our economy, helps our national security, and strikes more blows to a partisan health law that hurts the Middle Class,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in advance of the vote on the Senate floor. “I think its legislation worth supporting.”

President Obama is expected to sign the deal into law.