WASHINGTON, DC-Congress and the Obama Administration came to an agreement over the government’s budget at the last possible moment--shortly before the stroke of midnight when funding for government operations was set to cease.
Both sides made hard concessions, with the end result being a budget for the remainder of the fiscal year 2011 that is $39 billion less in discretionary spending than last fiscal year, the Christian Science Monitor reports. It is also $79 billion less than President Obama had asked for.
At the same time the high-profile and politically-sensitive programs that the Republicans had targeted for elimination--federal funds for Planned Parenthood and for the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gasses--did not make it through. Technically speaking, the budget agreement has not been formally approved. What Congress did Friday night was agree to a stopgap funding measure that will keep the federal government running for another week. However, it is expected that the long-term measure will pass both chambers when it is brought up for a vote, Reuters reports.
The commercial real estate industry is breathing is a sigh of relief now that the budget situation is resolved--at least for this fiscal year. As I reported on Friday, even though a shut down would have had a minimal short term impact, it would have introduced an element of uncertainty into what is still a fragile recovery.
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