By Kristina Peterson and Laura Meckler 

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's public complaints about the sweeping spending bill he threatened to veto before signing it into law Friday highlighted his discomfort with the classic Washington compromise: nobody wins everything, but both sides get some of what they want.

The bill that will fund the government until October gave neither party what they wanted on immigration policy. But by boosting spending by more than $140 billion above limits set in 2011, lawmakers from both parties got enough policy wins to live with the $1.3 trillion result. With just hours left before a government shutdown, Mr. Trump decided to live with it too, but not happily.

"As a matter of national security, I've signed this omnibus budget bill, " Mr. Trump said Friday at a press conference, but added, "There are a lot of things that I'm unhappy about in this bill."

Most prominently, Mr. Trump was unsatisfied with the bill's down-the-middle approach on immigration, which left out the most contentious proposals on both sides. The spending bill passed by Congress this week didn't supply Democrats with what they most wanted: protections for undocumented immigrants in an Obama-era program shielding them for deportation. Nor did it give Mr. Trump and conservative Republicans what they sought: billions more to construct a physical wall along the border with Mexico, and new limits on legal immigration.

Mr. Trump also blamed Democrats for forcing Republicans to agree to a $63 billion increase in domestic spending in return for an $80 billion increase in military spending, all of which sent the price tag of the bill climbing. The compromise pleased defense hawks, and those who wanted more domestic funding, but frustrated those most concerned about the impact of the increased spending on the federal debt.

"We're very disappointed that in order to fund the military, we had to give up things where we consider, in many cases, them to be bad or them to be a waste of money," Mr. Trump said Friday. "But that's the way, unfortunately, right now the system works."

Democrats generally don't object to lifting defense spending, but have used their leverage on spending bills to get similar increases for domestic programs. The spending bill includes higher funding for the National Institutes of Health, Head Start and child-care programs, opioid research and treatment, veterans' health care and infrastructure.

"It certainly doesn't have everything Democrats want, and it does contain several things Democrats are not thrilled about," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said on the Senate floor Thursday. "The same is true for our Republican friends. That is true of all good compromises."

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) expressed similar sentiments this week. "No bill of this size is perfect," he said when it was released. "But this legislation addresses important priorities and makes us stronger at home and abroad."

The president trained most of his fire on the lack of an immigration deal in the budget package. He said Democrats had blocked the inclusion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, even though they strongly support such protections and had offered Mr. Trump billions in border security spending in hopes of reaching a deal.

"We wanted to include DACA in this bill," Mr. Trump told reporters. "The Democrats would not do it."

Mr. Trump ended the program in September, but gave Congress until earlier this month to pass a replacement. Meanwhile, a federal court has ordered the administration to continue the program for now, easing some of the urgency for lawmakers to agree to a fix.

Instead, the spending bill, negotiated over weeks by congressional leaders, funded far less-controversial components. It will provide $1.57 billion for construction of physical barriers on the border with Mexico and other security measures. Mr. Trump won funding for 33 miles of new fencing on the Texas border -- about half of what he requested. He also got funding for 60 miles of replacement or secondary fencing, more than Mr. Trump had asked for.

"It does a lot of what we wanted," White House budget director Mick Mulvaney saidThursday.

Democrats won a number of concessions, particularly regarding immigration enforcement inside the U.S. The bill also specified that the new border construction must use designs now in use, which rules out a solid concrete wall.

In January, Democrats tried to use their leverage on spending bills to force negotiations over a permanent resolution to the DACA issue. But the ensuing three-day government shutdown produced only a series of votes in the Senate on a handful of immigration measures, none of which got the 60 votes needed to advance.

Mr. Trump opposed a bipartisan Senate proposal that administration officials said didn't meet all of his requirements, and turned down a deal that would have paired $25 billion in border wall spending with a path to citizenship for people eligible for DACA. The president has said legal protections for the Dreamers must be paired with tighter border security, including funding for a wall, as well as curbs to the family-based migration system and an end to the diversity visa lottery, which makes eligible for entry 50,000 people from countries that are underrepresented.

Some GOP lawmakers criticized the expensive compromise their leaders, including Mr. Trump, had agreed to.

"National security" and "military funding" are the excuses Republican elected officials have used for decades to support massive spending bills and bigger government," said Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.) on Twitter.

Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 23, 2018 18:07 ET (22:07 GMT)

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