No Shutdown, But a Lot of Sellouts by John Nichols
Published on Saturday, April 9, 2011 by The Nation
If you had asked Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman or John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton what Democrats would defend in a fight over the future of government, there's no real question that funding for housing, public transportation, community development programs and safe air travel would be high on the list.
Yet, in order to achieve the Friday night deal that averted a government shutdiown -- for a week and, potentially, longer if an anticipated agreement is cobbled together and agreed to -- all of those programs took serious hits.
The arrangement worked out Friday night averted the threatened shutdown with a two-step process. First, the House and Senate passed a one-week spending bill that addressed the immediate threat. That should give Congress and the White House time to finalize a fiscal 2011 spending deal -- on which they have agreed in principle -- before an April 15 deadline.
So who won the standoff? President Obama says the deal is good for the future, and that might make some Democrats think that he and the Democrats prevailed.
They didn't.