Congressional leaders could announce a deal as soon as Tuesday. | AP Photos Rare bipartisanship before deadline

Something strange happened in Congress on Tuesday: Leaders of both parties cut a drama-free budget deal, won immediate bipartisan support and did this all two months before deadline.

It may only be a six-month resolution to keep the government funded. But the fact that congressional leaders came together so quickly showed that neither party wanted to relive the pitched political battles over federal spending that have defined this divided Congress the past two years.


The deal, which was reached by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and President Barack Obama, will remove one item from a litany of must-pass fiscal bills Congress must pass before year’s end or risk major repercussions to the economy. Congress must still deal with hugely consequential fights over the lower tax rates set by the Bush administration and $1.2 trillion in defense and domestic spending cuts, but removing the specter of a federal government shutdown gave both parties relief on Tuesday.

“I’m glad that we’ve been able to work this out,” Reid told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “I appreciate [Boehner’s] cooperation in this matter, and I hope that we can face these challenges ahead with the same cooperation that we’ve had in the spirit of compromise the last few days on this issue.”

Still, if Congress clears a stopgap measure into next year, it will have all but ceded its responsibility to pass appropriations bills that set government priorities. Critics say continuing resolutions fail to properly distribute money to federal programs by sustaining funding for ones that aren’t working and inadequately funding others that are effective.

The funding levels could anger some tea party conservatives who have called for deeper cuts in federal spending and have opposed sending any money to implement the Obama health care law. But many Republicans are eager to head off a contentious budget fight on the eve of a presidential election and would rather punt the issue into next year, hoping Mitt Romney will be in the White House and their hands will be strengthened on Capitol Hill.

Most continuing resolutions maintain flat-line funding from one fiscal year into the next. But there will be an uptick in money under the Reid-Boehner deal, something that could anger some conservatives itching for another budget fight.

Under the agreement, funding through March would be consistent with the $1.047 trillion level for fiscal 2013 set forth in last year’s Budget Control Act, above the $1.028 trillion called for by Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget proposal. It also is above the $1.043 trillion level for the current fiscal year called for by the law.

Votes on the continuing resolution won’t come until lawmakers return in September from the five-week recess, which begins next week. The deal is still being drafted and is free of controversial riders, Reid said. Boehner said in a statement that bill language will be written during the August recess so it can pass both the House and the Senate before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

Drafting the CR won’t necessarily be a frictionless exercise. It could trigger scuffles between leaders and appropriators over how much money to provide each agency.

The White House, which has repeatedly threatened to veto House spending bills this year because their funding levels did not match the levels set out in the Budget Control Act, called Tuesday’s agreement a “welcome development.”

“The president has made clear that it is essential that the legislation to fund the government adheres to the funding levels agreed to by both parties last year, and not include ideological or extraneous policy riders,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “The president will work with leaders in both parties to sign a bill that accomplishes these goals.”

After two near-government shutdowns last year, as well as a near-debt default last summer, Congress has seen its approval ratings plummet, and public confidence in Washington has dropped to all-time lows. Each time, Congress narrowly averted a full-blown crisis moments before their deadlines. With one-third of Senate seats and every House seat on the November ballot, lawmakers don’t want to gamble with what could be a politically disastrous fight that could shut down the government just weeks before the election.

Recently, conservative House Republicans including Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana urged GOP leaders to take up a six-month measure, instead of the three-month bill that leadership initially preferred. And Heritage Action, the advocacy arm for the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, praised Boehner and Reid for pre-emptively heading off a nasty appropriations battle that could have ensued during the lame-duck session.

“A funding fight at that time would have added fuel to the fire during a session of Congress where lawmakers whom the American people voted out of office could push for tax increases, continued out-of-control spending and a continuation of harmful policies that breed dependency on government,” Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham said.

But one conservative group, the Tea Party Patriots, scoffed at the deal, saying the “lack of guts” exhibited by Boehner and Reid is “destroying” the nation.

Republicans said the concession on funding levels was made to “take the issue off the table” in order to keep the focus on jobs and the economy, according to a GOP leadership aide.

“That’s where Republicans win and Democrats lose,” the aide said.

If Congress agrees to pass a continuing resolution, it would eliminate one looming issue in the pile of unfinished business in the “fiscal cliff” facing lawmakers, including whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for all income groups and whether to roll back $109 billion in domestic and defense spending cuts set to take place next year.

Indeed, the agreement announced Tuesday does not address the automatic cuts set to kick in next year, said Reid, who again said Republicans will have to agree to raising revenues in any final deal to avert the sequester.

Still, “it puts this out of the way,” Reid told reporters. “That’s very important.”

The speed at which the deal was reached caught even veteran lawmakers off guard.

“I didn’t know about it,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) of the CR deal. “It strikes me as a pleasant surprise because it takes us past the election and allows us to be a bit more rational and a little less partisan.”