After months of bickering and going back and forth on major issues, there is finally an agreement for the fiscal year 2011 budget. Even with President Obama overseeing the talks and working with both Republicans and Democrats, a final decision could not be reached last week.
However, now the two parties have come to terms on the budget that would be in effect until the end of September. In the United States House of Representatives, the first step towards a finalized budget took place.
Thursday, the House voted in approval of a deal on the budget that Obama, Harry Reid, who is the Senate Majority Leader from Nevada, and John Boehner, who is the Speaker of the House, agreed on one week ago.
Even with Republicans holding the majority in the House of Representatives, the bill passed by a vote of 260-167.
59 Republicans voted against the piece of legislature despite the fact that Republican John Boehner played a major role in putting together the budget.
On the other end of things, 81 Democrats approved the measure while the rest voted against it. Even Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader from California, voted against the proposed budget.
Thus, as Republicans are blocking the passage of necessary spending by the Democrats, more and more Democrats are becoming unwilling to give in to all of the Republican demands and unwilling to agree to compromises that favor the conservative mindset much more than the liberal mindset.
Democrats are especially not happy that a total of $38.5 billion has been cut for the rest of the fiscal year. There is also disapproval among Democrats for the Republican demand to vote on removing funding from the Health Care Reform and Planned Parenthood, even though it would never pass in the United States Senate.
The fiscal year 2011 seemed to be settled as far as the House was concerned early Thursday.
The battle then moved to the Senate.
The vote in the United States Senate on the budget for fiscal year 2011 took place on Thursday as well.
The Senate passed the budget for fiscal year 2011 not too long after the House did with a vote of 81 to 19.
Now the bill is going to the desk of President Obama to be finalized with his signature.
Even though it took months longer than it should have and took sacrifices that neither party wanted to allow, there is finally a decision for the budget for the rest of 2011 that will hopefully lead the way for more bipartisan cooperation for future legislature.
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