Simple and extraordinary

It’s hard to imagine how something as pipsqueak as an $85 billion, twoyear budget deal could be so consequential.

Yet the agreement struck Tuesday could mark the end of paralyzing budget politics, avoid another government shutdown, remove Washington as a roadblock to recovery and help spur economic growth.

Aside from the usual partisan grumbling, the biggest criticism is that the deal is insufficiently ambitious. This misses the point: The great virtue of the agreement, which includes genuine if minor reforms, is that it shows how simple budget agreements can be when the two sides set their minds to it.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairmen of their respective budget committees, negotiated in private for weeks without grandiose floor speeches or dramatic denunciations of the other’s lack of good faith.

The package, which awaits House and Senate votes, is tiny in the larger context of a $17 trillion economy. Both parties also sidestepped their larger ambitions— cutting entitlement programs (which Republicans want) and raising taxes on the rich (which Democrats favor).

As with all budget agreements, this one has features both sides will hate, and they’ve already started saying so. Many Tea Party-backed Republicans refuse to support the plan because the new spending comes from breaking budget caps Congress agreed to in 2011. Some Democrats are just as unhappy about not extending unemployment benefits and cutting government pensions.

To those who would vote the agreement down, Ryan had this message: “In divided government, you don’t always get what you want.” Republicans and Democrats alike should listen to him.