Liberal Support For The Budget Deal Signals A Big Democratic Victory

An indicator of the size of the Democratic victory on the budget deal is the speed with which liberal members of Congress are coming out in support of the deal.
Republican members of Congress were outraged as soon as the deal was announced, but the reaction on the Democratic side has been much more supportive.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, and serves as co-Chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said, “My biggest concern was how it was going to treat Social Security disability, and the questions I got answered so far have allayed some of my concerns. So I’m going to keep studying it, but at this point I don’t have any fire alarms going off.”
House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI) said that Democrats avoided the worst case scenario on the disability program, “We avoided the worst proposal on disability to eliminate the availability of UI to those who are on disability” Levin pointed out that the changes to the disability program that Republicans are trying to sell as reform are nothing more than the closing of a loophole.
Republicans appear to have only gotten some symbolic face-saving gestures out of the deal. There is nothing in the major points of the agreement that is at the top of the Congressional Republican wishlist.

In the past, when these sorts of agreements were in the discussion stage, liberal Democrats were quick to voice their opposition to any cuts to programs or entitlements. The fact that Congressional Democrats are so quick to support the deal indicates that the agreement is a sweeping victory for Democrats.
The agreement is going to pass Congress with a coalition of Democratic voters and votes from the Republican leadership. The Republican extremists in the House and Senate who specialize in making sure that government doesn’t work have been comprehensively defeated by an agreement that is good for the country.
No matter what perspective this agreement is viewed from, it is clear that Democrats have won big.