American budget showdowns usually follow a familiar pattern. Confrontational rhetoric blazes in the run-up to a deadline to avert some crisis-either a government shutdown, or a default on debt-with Democrats and Republicans each blaming the other's intransigence for a lack of progress. Then, at the last minute, a narrow agreement is reached to avoid disas-ter-at least, for a few months. This drama played out as recently as September. It was a surprise, then, when on October 26th President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the outgoing Speaker of the House, struck a deal to suspend the debt ceiling, a limit on government borrowing, a full week before the deadline. Still more surprising, the deal was wide-ranging, covering not just the debt ceiling but also spending limits for 2016 and 2017-num-bers which did not have to be settled until December, at the earliest.
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