Congressman Steve King.

Congressman Steve King.

Republican Congressman Steve King says grassroots Republicans have every right to be frustrated by the massive federal budget package that will be voted upon by the U.S. House tomorrow.

“I’m a definite no,” King told Radio Iowa this afternoon. “…At the last minute nobody announced that they were going to slip into the omnibus spending bill an additional 198,000 H2B Visas.”

H2B temporary work visas are granted to low-skilled foreigners who are allowed to enter the country to work in seasonal, non-agricultural jobs. King said it means nearly 200-thousand people will be brought into the country to do things like “clean hotel rooms and wait tables.”

“Work that they say Americans don’t want to do and meanwhile, you know, we’ve got 94.6 million Americans who are of working age simply not in the workforce and another 9 or 10 million that are on unemployment and, still, they can’t do the logical thing and hire people off of welfare or unemployment and put them into the workforce,” King said. “You get a two-fer when you do that. You stop having to pay them not to do something and you get to pay them for doing something.”

King drafted nine different amendments that would “defund” several federal initiatives, including the EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule and the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, but the House committee that reviews amendments rejected all nine.

“I knew these amendments were not going to be allowed to be debated on the floor,” King said. “But there has to be a record of what congress should be doing.”

King also tried to nix federal funding for Planned Parenthood and for implementing “ObamaCare”. King said his office has been flooded with calls from conservatives who oppose the budget deal and it’s time for Republicans to “retool” according to King.

“There is a disconnect and that disconnect is something that had been I’ll say festering for a long time,” King said. “I would just say to the grassroots members of the party: ‘There really wasn’t a way to get out of this course that had been charted by Speaker Boehner.’ We’ve really given up our leverage throughout this fiscal year going to next September 30th. Now the focus turns to the presidential race.”

King has voted “yes” on another bill that extends a series of tax breaks, including the wind production tax credit. That incentive for the wind industry would be maintained for two more years, then phased out by 2022.

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the new Republican speaker of the House, has said that tax package, combined with the budget deal, includes things that both Republicans and Democrats can support. For example, the budget bill includes language Republicans sought that will end the 40-year ban on exporting U.S. oil.