Trump signs $1.3T budget after threatening to veto

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $1.3-trillion US spending measure averting a government shutdown on Friday, just hours after saying he was considering a veto.

Trump has been fuming because the package does not include protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants and doesn't provide enough money for his promised border wall.

But Trump is happy about major increases in military spending included in the bill.

"My highest duty is to keep America safe," he said adding that he signed the bill "as a matter of national security."

On Friday, the president reiterated his problems with the bill on Twitter, saying he would never sign a bill like it again.

The Senate passed the bill shortly after midnight averting a third federal shutdown this year, an outcome both parties wanted to avoid. But in crafting a sweeping deal that busts budget caps, they've stirred conservative opposition and set the contours for the next funding fight ahead of the midterm elections.

But action stalled in the Senate, as conservatives ran the clock in protest. Then, an unusual glitch arose when Republican Sen. James Risch of Idaho wanted to remove a provision to rename a forest in his home state after the late Cecil Andrus, a four-term Democratic governor.

At one point, Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee stepped forward to declare the entire late-night scene "ridiculous. It's juvenile."

In the end, Risch lost. But the fight contributed to late-night delays before passage of the massive spending package,

Once the opponents relented, the Senate began voting, clearing the package by a 65-32 vote a full day before Friday's midnight deadline to fund the government.

'No one read it'

"Shame, shame. A pox on both Houses — and parties," tweeted Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who spent the afternoon tweeting details found in the 2,200-page bill that was released the night before. "No one has read it. Congress is broken."

Paul said later he knew he could only delay, but not stop, the outcome and had made his point.

The omnibus spending bill was supposed to be an antidote to the stopgap measures Congress has been forced to pass — five in this fiscal year alone — to keep the government temporarily running amid partisan fiscal disputes.

Leaders delivered on Trump's top priorities of boosting Pentagon coffers and starting work on his promised border wall, while compromising with Democrats on funds for road building, child-care development, fighting the opioid crisis and more.

But the result has been unimaginable to many Republicans after campaigning on spending restraints and balanced budgets. Along with the recent Republican tax cuts law, the bill that stood a foot tall on lawmakers' desks ushers in the return of $1 trillion US deficits.

White House legislative director Marc Short framed it as a compromise. "I can't sit here and tell you and your viewers that we love everything in the bill," he said on Fox. "But we think that we got many of our priorities funded."

Trying to smooth over differences, Republican leaders focused on military increases that were once core to the party's brand as guardians of national security.

"Vote yes for our military. Vote yes for the safety and the security of this country," said House Speaker Paul Ryan ahead of voting.

Parties divided

But even that remained a hard sell. In all, 90 House Republicans, including many from the conservative House Freedom Caucus, voted against the bill, as did two dozen Republicans in the Senate. It was a sign of the entrenched Republican divisions that have made leadership's job controlling the majority difficult. They will likely repeat on the next budget battle in the fall.

Democrats faced their own divisions, particularly after failing to resolve the stalemate over shielding young Dreamer immigrants from deportation as Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has left it for the courts to decide.

Also missing from the package was a renewal of federal insurance subsidies to curb premium costs on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Trump ended some of those payments as part of his effort to scuttle former president Barack Obama's health-care law, but Republicans have joined Democrats in trying to revive them.

Bipartisan efforts to restore the subsidies, and provide additional help for insurance carriers, broke down over disagreements on how tight abortion restrictions should be on using the money for private insurance plans. Senate Republicans made a last-ditch effort to tuck the insurance provisions into the bill, but Democrats refused to yield on abortion restrictions.

Still, Democrats were beyond pleased with the outcome. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi chronicled the party's many gains, and noted they could have just have easily withheld the votes Republicans needed to avert another shutdown.

"We chose to use our leverage to help this bill pass," Pelosi said.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said as the minority party in Congress, "We feel good." He added, "We produced a darn good bill."