There never was going to be an actual shutdown, the issue was how much drama there would be on or about October 1.
The drama held great risk — for both parties. If played wrong by Republicans, it could have given Obama a last minute boost — and vice versa.
Via NY Times:
House and Senate leaders reached a tentative agreement on Tuesday that would pay for federal government operations through next March, averting the prospect of a messy government shutdown just before the November elections.
The emerging deal is a sharp contrast to previous occasions when House Republicans used the approach of a spending deadline to insist on deep spending cuts in exchange for their votes, once avoiding a shutdown by a matter of hours. But with the Oct. 1 deadline for enacting spending bills for 2012 coming so close to the election, Republicans leaders were eager to avoid a government crisis that they could be blamed for by voters at the polls.
Under the agreement that takes the spending fight off the table before the presidential and Congressional elections, lawmakers have agreed to a slightly higher rate of spending: $1.047 trillion as opposed to $1.043 trillion. The level was agreed to in last year’s budget deal; some conservative Republicans had pushed to stick with the current rate or less.
Neither side was willing to play chicken, via The Hill:
While appropriators had hoped to wrap up the 2012 spending matter quickly in a lame-duck session, conservatives in the House pushed for a longer-term bill. They are betting on Republicans winning control of the Senate and Mitt Romney winning control of the White House, resulting in them being able to quickly roll back spending and approve policy measures like the defunding of Obama’s healthcare reform law.
Senate Democrats are betting on keeping control of the upper chamber, and did not want the risk of a government shutdown complicating lame-duck talks on taxes and other automatic budget cuts.
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One other risk averted…
Pres. Diktat might have rushed to fill the breach with ANOTHER take-over of power.
Budget? We don’t need no stinking Budget!
Budgets?
They are so quaint and … plebeian.
On issues that would directly affect the political fortunes of members, the US Congress moves decisively. On matters that would directly affect the fortunes of the people they represent… meh, not so much.
Yeah, but…
Obama’s Labor Department on Monday issued “guidance” to the states, telling them that a federal law requiring advance notice of mass layoffs does not apply to the layoffs that may occur in January as a result of automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration.”
Dem battle prep against President Romney?
Republicans are betting..
Democrats are betting..
I’m betting it’s going to get damn ugly around here in the next 24 months…no matter who wins their bets-
Giving rise to a 3rd party…
Betting that will be 20 years too late…
-Raising the Debt Ceiling
-unprecedented tax increases in a few months
-“Super Committee”…knowing it would lead to gutting the military and medi-care
-continued funding of Obamcare
-false “spending cuts”
…voted “Aye” in the “new, tea party infused” republican House of Representatives.
“Republicans” are betting America’s future that a weak candidate can win an election, and take the Sh!t sandwich of the menu that they themselves helped cook.
Sorry, I have lost all patience with the republican leadership in both chambers–betting they can fix it all in Lame Duck—betting if they can’t, Romney can…retroactively.
Wanna bet?
With a GDP of 1.5% it is the American economy that is shutting down.
Bipartisianship rears its ugly head at a time to get our collected ass’s reelected.
I am really starting to think there is only 1 party and both sides are playing us for rubes.
How anyone can vote for trillion $ deficits is beyond me. We use our currency to feed our families and our armies to defend our lives and they respond by using that as leverage to shack us down for infinite amounts of gold. Outrageous.
Well, I see the “Praetorian Guard of Limitless Government” have conspired again to feather their own nests at the expense of our children and grandchildren.
Obama, Reid, McConnell and Boehner have no intention of reducing the size and scope of the federal government.
The TEA Party has to make some real inroads into Congressional leadership in 2013 or this will end badly and relatively quickly. We are only a few years away from an economic meltdown of Greek proportions…
There you go….
Small picture/short game: get Obama out
Big picture/long game: get everybody else out
If only there was a way to accomplish this all in one stroke.
Reagan has been gone for 8 years but he would still make a better President that anybody who ran this year.
How did we get here from 1988…