Getting Along to Get Along

After months of discord over a Fiscal Year 2014 budget, the merits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), and whether the U.S.'s self-imposed statutory borrowing limit should be raised in the face of the possibility of the first debt default in the nation's history, Congress was able to come to yet another Eleventh Hour Agreement that will keep the country running. . . 

As the end of Fiscal Year 2013 approached and Congress scrambled to reach a short-term spending bill to buy more time to negotiate a budget that could, for some reason, not be negotiated during the preceding six months, a group of House Members moved the goalposts.  No longer was the focus of the debate on the vastly disparate top level spending figures crafted by the respective Budget Committees of the House and Senate, but intend it was on whether it was worth funding the government at all if Obamacare remained the law of the land.  With Congress at an impasse and neither side showing any signs of backing down, Democrats and Republicans engaged in a 16-day staring contest, during which hundreds of thousand of federal workers were furloughed and a staggering number of vital public services were put on hold.

Finally, on the eve of what the Treasury Department predicted would be the last day that the Federal Government would be able to pay its bills, the contestants blinked.  After immeasurable handwringing and near-agreements, leaders of both parties in the Senate were able to broker a deal that the Speaker was willing to bring to the House floor for a vote.  After passing in the Senate overwhelmingly, the multifaceted resolution was sent to the House.  Although the risk of staining the full faith and credit of the United States was not enough to inspire unanimous approval, the bill eventually passed the House with broad bipartisan support and the President promptly signed it into law.

Included in the not-so-grand bargain: the government will be funded through January 15 at the House-proposed spending figure, the debt limit will be raised until February 7, members of the House and Senate will meet in conference to attempt to finally agree on a budget (with a December 13 deadline for agreement), and Kentucky will get a new dam.

Crises averted.  For now.  See you again in January.  And February.