WASHINGTON — The budget agreement struck late Monday between the White House and Congress hands President Obama a clear victory, vindicating his hard line this year against spending limits that he argued were a drag on the economy and buying him freedom for the final 14 months of his term from the fiscal dysfunction that has plagued his presidency.

The deal is the policy equivalent of keeping the lights on — hardly the stuff of a bold fiscal legacy. But it achieves the main objective of his 2016 budget: to break free of the spending shackles he agreed to when he signed the Budget Control Act of 2011, an outcome, the president allowed Tuesday, that he could be “pretty happy” about.

For this fiscal year alone, the deal would add $50 billion in spending, divided equally between defense and domestic programs, as well as $16 billion for emergency war spending, half for the military, half for the State Department. Together, that represents an increase of $66 billion above the spending limits for 2016, not far off the $70 billion increase Mr. Obama requested.

From the moment he introduced his budget Feb. 2, Mr. Obama held firm on his demand that Congress break through the punishing across-the-board cuts known as sequestration in the Budget Control Act to provide equal increases to domestic and military spending. He promised to veto any spending bill that adhered to the statutory spending caps, made good on that threat this month by vetoing a popular defense policy bill, enlisted the support of congressional Democrats with whom his White House had sometimes sparred on budget matters, and capitalized on Republican divisions to get his way.