And they got nothing.
Oh yes, you will say that the income verification part of the deal is something they got, except that is already part of the Affordable Care Act. Only a delusional know nothing teabagger could think that a person’s income would not be verified by the IRS to determine if their income was sufficiently below the legal threshold before they got subsidies. So in essence, what they got was an endorsement and an enforcement of Obamacare. LOL. Thanks GOP.
Here is Ezra Klein on what we Democrats got:
Democrats managed to get the budget conference they’ve been pursuing for six months. They got a CR of the length they wanted and ending before the next sequestration cuts rather than six-month CR that Sen. Susan Collins proposed. They got a debt-ceiling increase all the way into February. This is far beyond what Democrats thought possible on Sept. 30. […]
But the strategy Ted Cruz managed to force on the GOP was so suicidal that Democrats felt comfortable forcing Republicans to cave completely. They were so confident that they managed to reject a deal proposed by Sen. Susan Collins and supported by many Senate Democrats because it funded the government for longer than the Democratic leadership preferred. That’s a level of control over the outcome that Democrats never expected to have.
Going forward, not only will Republicans be afraid to shut down the government or threaten the debt ceiling again during this Congress, but if Republicans somehow end up doing it anyway, Democrats will be unafraid of the fight.
According to Josh Marshall, the credit goes to Obama’s months long strategy of saying, explicitly, that he was not going to deal on the debt ceiling, and then backing that stand up when all of Republican Washington thought he would fold like a cheap suit.
Many Republicans knew this was going to be a disaster going in. But just as many totally misread Obama. Just days before the shutdown numerous high profile Republicans insisted there was no way Obama wouldn’t negotiate. But probably the key driver of this drama has been President Obama’s refusal to negotiate over raising the debt ceiling. Yes, there’s been some back and forth here at the end, but as begging like this suggests, it’s mainly been to sort of out terms of surrender. But that refusal has defined the entire standoff.
So now the precedent has been set. The Obama Doctrine, as it were. There will never again be hostage taking of the debt ceiling or the funding of the government in order to force policy choices. You want to negotiate on the budget? Then you negotiate in conference, while keeping the government open and paying our bills. You want to repeal a law? Then you try, through the same proper process that the law was passed and enacted through, to repeal the law by having it pass both Houses of Congress and then garnering the Presidential signature. If you behave like a criminal, then you will be treated like one.