Winner!

[yallerdawg]

Source: The Hill, by Peter Schroeder
Budget deal: Winners and losers

The notable winners:

President Obama/Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)/Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

Democrats went into budget negotiations with a specific goal in mind: lift the spending caps set by the sequester. And they got it. The final budget deal of Obama’s presidency pushed government funding above those spending caps, while removing the debt limit as a hurdle to clear for the rest of his time in office.

The final package avoided any major changes to entitlement programs, and garnered unanimous support among House Democrats.

Medicare/social security

Roughly one-third of Medicare enrollees dodged a 52-percent premium hike thanks to the budget deal, which includes a loan from the federal government paid by future premium hikes. And Social Security’s disability trust fund got a much-needed cash infusion as well. That fund would have gone dry next year and enrollees were facing steep cuts, but a slice of the payroll tax as part of the budget deal helps shore it up.

The notable losers:

Conservatives/House Freedom Caucus

Conservatives wanted Congress to stick to the sequester spending caps, and hated seeing budget deals hammered out in private by just a handful of policymakers. But at the end of the day, Congress ended up passing a bill that exceeded previously set spending caps that was negotiated by a handful of congressional leaders and the White House.

The budget deal went from being unveiled to passage in just a matter of days, and while plenty of Republicans ended up opposing it, the deal never faced any significant threat of derailment. The question for conservatives now is whether that budget deal was the last gasp of the Boehner Era, or a sign of more to come.

Outside conservative groups


It was a rough stretch for outside conservative groups that have frequently worked to flex muscle in the Capitol. Heritage Action and Club for Growth joined forces to blast the budget accord as it drifted away from spending caps — and put lawmakers on notice that they were watching the vote. But it ultimately was for naught.

To add insult to injury, just days before the budget passed, more than half of the House's Republicans joined with Democrats to move a bill reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. Forcing that bank's charter to expire had been a major coup for the conservative movement, which has dismissed the government agency as corporate cronyism. But the leadership shakeup gave Ex-Im backers the chance to move on a rare discharge petition, circumventing leadership opposition and bringing the bill up for a floor vote. Ex-Im's fate is still up in the air in the Senate, but vehement conservative opposition to its renewal in the House gave way to a reauthorization vote that garnered 313 'yeas.'

Well played, President Obama!