The federal government survived the hostage crisis created by House Republicans, but emerged staggering from the deal struck Friday night. The compromises were damaging, the amount of money cut from a sickly economy was severe, and the image of Washington as a back-alley dogfighting garage will not soon fade.

The Republicans set the terms of the debate at every point, and learned that they can push the fumbling and fearful Democrats far to the right. Within hours, they began revving up to create the next crisis.

Although much of the final deal has not yet been made public, it is clear it could have been far worse. The White House refused to accept many of the most radical cuts in the original House bill, including deep reductions to Head Start, AmeriCorps, Pell grants, public broadcasting and competitive education programs. Financial and health care reform will continue but with reduced money. The worst right-wing demands were dropped, including a cutoff of funds to providers of abortion and family planning, and an end to regulation of greenhouse gases. And nearly half the cuts came from a side of the budget that will do less harm to the economy and the most vulnerable.

Nonetheless, the Republicans did far better than they could possibly have imagined when the process began, winning $38.5 billion in cuts, more than even the House leadership had proposed. That’s on top of the $40 billion in additional spending that President Obama had originally proposed for this fiscal year, which was dropped. About $13 billion will be cut from the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services. The State Department and foreign assistance will lose $8 billion.