Idaho’s Republican U.S. senators voted against a bipartisan budget deal that President Obama signed on Thursday. Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch opposed the plan that passed 64-36 on Wednesday. The same plan passed the House of Representatives earlier this month on a 332-94 vote.

    On the final Senate vote, all 53 Democrats, two independents and nine Republicans voted for the bill. Although Crapo and Risch both voted no along with 34 other Republican senators, they have issued no immediate press releases on their opposition to the budget deal.

    The package marked a modest congressional accomplishment at the end of a year punctuated by a partial government shutdown, a near-default by the U.S. Treasury and congressional gridlock on issues ranging from immigration to gun control.

    In all, however, only one Idaho lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, supported the agreement forged during talks led by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

    Simpson was one of 169 Republicans in the House who joined 163 Democrats to secure approval in that chamber. Simpson said the agreement avoids another government shutdown, preserves dozens, perhaps hundreds, of jobs at the Idaho National Laboratory and lays the groundwork for extending payment in Lieu of Taxes payments to Idaho's 44 counties.

    “My Republican colleagues and I have been seeking reforms to sequestration that lessen the pain on the military, allow Congress to budget in a more orderly process, and maintain or enhance the long-term savings achieved by the Budget Control Act,” Simpson said about his vote in a news release. “The bill we passed (Wednesday)accomplishes all three of those goals and is a positive step in the right direction.”

    Simpson, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, which funds the Idaho National Laboratory, also said, “I am especially relieved that the agreement short circuits some of the devastating sequester-based cuts to Idaho National Laboratory.”    

    However, Rep. Raul Labrador, a GOP lawmaker from Idaho’s 1st District, voted against the bill earlier this month.

    “This is a bad deal, plain and simple,” Labrador said in a news release. “Once again, Congress is making promises of future spending decreases in exchange for actual spending increases today.   Republicans should keep the promise they made to the American people that they would use the sequester to address the true drivers of our debt and fight for real entitlement reform.”

    Idaho Falls attorney Bryan Smith, who is challenging Simpson in the GOP primary next year also criticized the compromise budget deal.

    “The Ryan-Murray budget deal is an example of what is broken in Washington. Career politicians in Washington have failed to seriously tackle our nation’s debt problem,” Smith said in a news release. “The deal eliminates spending cuts already in place and increases our discretionary spending to over $1 trillion next year. I cannot support this budget deal when it fails to make any real effort to curb government spending.”