Budget deal may signal era of tiny achievements

People hoping for a better working US government can't decide whether to cheer or lament a bipartisan budget bill that legislative leaders call a breakthrough even as they acknowledge it does little.

In an era of low expectations, House passage of the bill marks a rare cease-fire that should avoid a repeat of October's government shutdown and flirtation with default.

Yet it comes nowhere near the more ambitious efforts to address long-term spending and debt. Such comprehensive plans repeatedly collapsed in recent years despite secret White House talks, blue-ribbon panels, a congressional "supercommittee" and other devices and tactics.

Several Washington insiders warn against assuming the new budget deal will lead to progress on immigration reform and other stalemated issues.

"The president calls it a good first step, but to what?" said Bob Bixby of the bipartisan Concord Coalition, which advocates far-reaching budget reforms. "My fear is that it may be the end of the search for the larger grand bargain rather than the beginning. It has that feel."

"Grand bargain" refers to a bipartisan accord that would start to slow the long-term cost projections of Social Security and Medicare which provide retirement benefits and health care coverage to the elderly while raising tax revenues to lower the deficit, among other things.

The bill that passed the House on Thursday, and awaits Senate action, is a tiny step forward, Bixby said. "But you can't get that excited if your kid brings home a D because it wasn't an F," he said.