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CONGRESSIONAL NEGOTIATORS REACHED a modest two-year US budget deal Tuesday that would avoid a repeat of October’s government shutdown, signalling a temporary truce in fiscal wars that have paralysed Washington.
The agreement, brokered by Democratic Senator Patty Murray and House Republican Paul Ryan, sets the new annual budget caps for 2014 and 2015 at just over $1 trillion – slightly higher than current levels – and partially repeals the unpopular automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration”.
Importantly, a budget bill under the agreed framework would free legislators to focus on how to reduce the main drivers of the country’s debt, such as entitlement programs including Medicare, without the specter of a budget showdown every six or 12 months.
“I see this agreement as a step in the right direction,” Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee and chairman of the House Budget Committee, told reporters, noting that the deal does not raise taxes on Americans.
Murray, the Senate’s top budget chief, said she and negotiating partner Ryan set aside political differences and have “broken through the gridlock and reached a bipartisan budget compromise that will prevent a government shutdown in January”.
Coming together
President Barack Obama hailed the agreement as a sign of rare bipartisan cooperation in the strife-filled US legislature.
“It’s a good sign that Democrats and Republicans in Congress were able to come together and break the cycle of short-sighted, crisis-driven decision-making to get this done,” he said.
Under a deal reached in October that ended a crippling 16-day shutdown, federal spending authority expires on 15 January, when a new budget will need to be in force.
Tuesday’s deal – the first by a divided Congress since 1986, according to Ryan – provides for $85 billion in mandatory savings while creating $63 billion in sequestration relief, leaving roughly $22 billion in deficit reduction.
Underwhelming
Obama said he was pleased the deal worked toward replacing sequestration cuts that he said have “served as a mindless drag on our economy over the last year.”
By most accounts the deal is an underwhelming one, far from the grand bargain envisioned by some optimists in Washington earlier this year.
But it sets the warring Democratic and Republican parties on track for further cooperation on budget policy, ending the cycle of fiscal feuding that has scarred Washington since 2011.
“We have lurched from crisis to crisis and from one cliff to the next. And when one countdown clock was stopped it wasn’t too long before the next one got started,” Murray said.
That uncertainty was devastating to our fragile economic recovery.
Similar to his Republican colleague, House Speaker John Boehner hailed the deal as a “positive step forward by replacing one-time spending cuts with permanent reforms to mandatory spending programs that will produce real, lasting savings”.
The challenge now is selling the agreement to skeptical conservatives in the House of Representatives and Senate.
Murray said she was “hopeful” the deal will pass muster in the Republican-led House this week before that chamber breaks for the year-end recess.
Each chamber must pass a budget bill by 15 January or risk another government shutdown.
The American Dream?
Senator Marco Rubio was quick out of the gate in opposition to the deal, saying it merely furthers “Washington’s irresponsible budgeting decisions” by spending more than government brings in.
“We need a government with less debt and an economy with more good-paying jobs, and this budget fails to accomplish both goals, making it harder for more Americans to achieve the American Dream,” Rubio said.
A handful of conservative groups have already come out opposing the agreement, saying it blows past the budget caps established in the Budget Control Act of 2011.
“Spending levels were set by law at $967 billion,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity.
“Exceeding those levels by $45 billion takes us in the wrong direction, further from fiscal responsibility.”
Ryan acknowleged that the package was not ideal, but in a divided government in which Democrats control the White House and Senate, he was pleased with the result.
“I deal with the way things are, not the way I necessarily want them to be,” he said.
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I wonder if someone did take him out 30 years ago, would Zimbabwe be the basket case he turned it into, or would some other “leader”, equally malingnant have just taken his place.
It’s tempting to write Africa off, but these things are not inevitable. The neighbours in Botswana were a landlocked, diamond rich former colony. Not an obvious candidate for success. And yet they were, partly because of Seretse Khama’s leadership, but also because people kept voting for him.
Unfortunately, for every relative success story there are 50 failed states. Nation building is hard and requires guts, enterprise, selflessness and vision. Mugabe wasn’t even asked to nation build. He was handed a fully functioning, very rich and successful country and managed to level it in less than a generation. That takes mean spiritness, stupidity, and the most crass selfishness and myopic vision, which, unfortunately, seems to be the calibre of most African leaders. Take and destroy is what they do and in the meantime, the west continues to do what the west does best. Assuage our feelings of western guilt by feeding, clothing and vaccinating the Africans left behind by their very own “leaders”.
We can write much of Africa off if the Chinese economy falters, And also, we can take Australia with it.
Problem with africa is its full of africans
“Unfortunate event”
In who’s eyes ????
Funny that at Mandela’s memorial when the camera would go to different world leaders the crowd would cheer or boo depending on who it was on. Mugabe got a massive cheer and Bush Jnr got a massive boo. Ya no your screwed when Mugabe gets a bigger cheer than ya!
It was an ANC crowd at the funeral & Mugabe was a big supporter if the ANC during apartheid times so I’d be sure that’s why he was cheered rather than for his recent policies.
That says a lot more about the crowd than it does about Bush Jr.
Whatever you can accuse Bush Jr. of, laying waste to his country, starving his people, killing the productive farmers and having an ugly greedy, mean wife isnt among them. An ANC crowd can turn into a vicious mob at the turn of a hair. Being rational abd discerning is not their thing.
Hurricane Katrina anyone? ;)
Sadly, probably the latter.
Problem with Africa is the tribal government system, and the mentality of it’s people.
@coom
Same could be said for a lot of countries..including ours!
Christina who wrote that paper? Dept of the Taoiseach?
While it is true that Robert Mugabe has a few character flaws, it cannot be denied that he is an active leader who stands up for his people. Much better than the shower we have running this country, he is. You can bet Robert Mugabe would have burned the bondholders and sent the IMF home with a flea in their ear.
Pity he didn’t have a fatal “accident” here.
Proably after totruring them first…Thing is we can elect another incompetant shower to govern us.Mugabe is there forever like a big black blood sucking tick on Zimbabwae.But then thats what happens if you let Marxist gun waving loons loose on a perfectly functioning and producing ,albeit not without is fault state.Turn it into a dictatorship that makes the previous oppression by whomever look like paradise.
have your say