House conservatives object to the term “minibus” used to describe the $1.2 trillion government funding bill that congressional leaders unveiled in the early hours of Thursday morning .
“It's not too 'mini', is it?” Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. “A 'mini' today is very different from a 'mini' five years ago… It is certainly smaller than a bus.”
A “minibus” is the slang term on Capitol Hill for a spending package that combines several of Congress' 12 annual government appropriations bills. It comes from the term “omnibus” used when all 12 bills are grouped into a single massive spending package, plus the inclusion of unrelated priorities.
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Rep. Chip Roy criticized the deal as a “swampy bus.” (Getty Images)
Large sections of the Republican Party and some Democrats oppose the “omnibus” spending bills as being too broad and lacking the transparency that smaller funding packages would have. That's why congressional leaders split them into two six-packs and have announced victories by keeping those packages largely free of irrelevant priorities.
The first package, amounting to approximately $460 billion, was approved by the House and Senate earlier this month. But opponents of the bipartisan deal say the entire deal is just a broad split in two.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a member of the House Freedom Caucus, agreed when asked if the term “minibus” was misleading.
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Rep. Andy Biggs said the term “minibus” was misleading. (Getty Images)
“Once you stick it with the last one, you have a bus. The first shoe on the bus dropped last week. This is the second shoe that dropped this week,” Biggs told Fox News Digital.
Chairman Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has generally not referred to the agreement as a “minibus” but typically refers to it as a spending deal or the appropriations process. But the term has been widely used by lawmakers and the media even though the package represents about 70% of the federal government's discretionary spending.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, posted several times on
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House Republican leaders have celebrated the break with the trend of the “omnibus” spending bill. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
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The $1.2 trillion spending bill includes funding for defense, the Department of Homeland Security, education and the legislative branch, among other offices.
“It doesn't matter what you call it… If you have a bad process, you end up with a bad product. And that's what we've had,” Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., told Fox News Digital. .
