When the long-lost grail of bipartisan compromise finally re-emerged on Capitol Hill this week, the spending bill for 2015 turned out to be weighted with some of the most devious and damaging provisions imaginable for good government. Written in secrecy, presented as the take-it-or-leave-it alternative to a government shutdown, the bill, which narrowly passed the House Thursday night, includes two regressive “riders” aimed at warming the big-money hearts of donors who leave Congress increasingly vulnerable to special-interest corruption.

One rider would allow a huge increase in the size of checks that deep-pocketed donors can write to win inner-sanctum clout with the major political parties. A donor now held to a mere $97,200 under party limits would be able to give a staggering $777,600. In a further invitation to luxury shopping, a couple yearning for the inside track could triple-down and give $3.1 million to party committees. This is pretty much the coup de grâce for the McCain-Feingold law’s ban on large party donations enacted to end the “soft money” corruption of Watergate.

The parties claim they need this big transfusion of lucre to compete with the stealth millions being raised by independent political operatives. But in truth, the rider would only enlarge the political casino’s runaway action, without any hint of ethical controls.

The second rider, custom tailored for the banks of Wall Street, would kill a crucial part of the Dodd-Frank reform law aimed at curbing the banks’ reckless speculation in complex derivatives that fueled the banks’ ignominious collapse in 2008 and fed the great recession. The rider would effectively put taxpayers back on the hook to cushion the banks’ losses in risky derivative deals.