Deal on Budget Announced, Not Final, Government Remains in Business... for now

Within the past few moments, House Speaker John Boehner made a brief appearance and announced that a deal for funding the remainder of the 2011 budget has been reached.

Since the hour is so late, the House and Senate must vote on what turns out to be the seventh continuing resolution to keep the government functioning. Said resolution will fund the government for the next four or five days (Boehner did not go into specifics) until the final bill is written, approved and delivered to both houses, voted upon and eventually submitted to the president.

The final budget agreement should be completed and passed in law by mid-week, according to Boehner and other sources close to the negotiations, though neither Senator Reid, majority leader in the Senate, nor President Obama has yet to comment.

In the final analysis - and, it should be noted that this is by no means final - this entire exercise has been a prime example of the abject failure that is our federal government. The suspected cuts come to about $39 billion, but do not include any cuts to the defense department and are mostly directed at programs that affect primarily lower and middle class citizens.

The lawmakers missed the deadline. They will not vote on the continuing resolution until after midnight. A small technicality, but sometimes, detail matters, a fact completely lost on the current crop of poseur politicians in our nation's capitol.

The rape of our nation and much of the planet will continue. We remain the laughing stock of the world, our position in first place remains unchallenged in any way.

Added, 11:15 pm EDT: President Obama and Senator Reid have just spoken, both confirm that a deal has been struck. Reid confirms that the continuing resolution will last through Thursday (six full days for it to all fall apart, again).

Senator Mitch McConnell, the senate minority leader, could not resist the temptation to flap his gums a bit. Said little of importance, as usual. Everybody takes victory laps, even though nobody won.

Next up are showdowns on raising the debt ceiling and the fiscal year 2012 budget. This is not over, not by a long shot. This is only the beginning of more and more politics, all leading up to the general elections in 2012, should we all not die of boredom or disgust before then.