The gift of the bipartisan budget deal: Stability

The bill’s passage is “seemingly assured,” says The New York Times. That’s significant after “five years of all-out brawling, legislative gridlock and general dysfunction,” the paper says.

“The budget battles of the last five years did a great deal of damage in terms of raising borrowing costs, constraining business investment and depressing consumer spending,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, tells Politico. “Getting D.C. off the front pages is very, very good news.”

While the deal is “the policy equivalent of keeping the lights on,” says another Times article, the nation is spared fiscal dysfunction for the remainder of Barack Obama’s presidency.