Just why was it so hard for the parties to sit down, like months ago, and negotiate, and then after both parties had laid out all their "demands," that could not be resolved, at least then if stuff is going to be shut down, one would know what was really at stake (e.g., what programs cut or expanded or not, what taxes raised, what entitlements cut or not cut, which programs more means tested, or not) - as opposed to empty rhetoric? But I guess we had to go through this, so both sides could see how their respective PR campaigns moved the polls. Poll driven government in this context disgusts me.
This is just a deal to keep the status quo in place for 3 months, and kick the can down the road until January, Torie. None of the underlying issues have been resolved yet. Actual negotiations about the underlying issues haven't even really begun yet.
I think that 986 billion number is higher than the 965 billion number in the sequester (I may be off a bit in the exact number of billions), and in recent days, there was a lot of chat about upping spending from sequester levels. That at least is my sense of it. I could be wrong. Again, however, the main game was the debt limit increase, not the CR. Always has been.
$986 billion is the *current* sequester level. By agreeing to this deal, the two parties are sticking with what 2011 budget agreement said would be the sequester spending level for this year. However, there's another round of sequester cuts scheduled to kick in from January, which would bring annual discretionary spending down to $965 billion. The Dems don't want discretionary spending to drop that low, but that'll be sorted in negotiations between now and January. This deal funds the government until January 15 precisely because that's when the new sequester cuts kick in, so that those cuts can be part of the negotiations going forward.
EDIT: When you say "in recent days, there was a lot of chat about upping spending from sequester levels"....that's because in recent days, people were talking about passing a CR that goes beyond January. Since this one only goes until January, they're skirting the issue.
