Congress reaches agreement on budget

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that the Democrats and Republicans in Congress have reached a deal to avert a government shutdown.

President Obama has also delivered a brief message, saying that "some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful [but] we protected the investments we need." He thanked Reid and Speaker John Boehner for their cooperation and added, "Today we acted on behalf of our children's future."

According to USA Today, "Boehner said the House will now take up a short-term bill to keep the government operating for a few more days while the budget deal is finalized. The deal would cover government spending until fiscal year 2011 ends on Sept. 30."

Reports are that the budget deal will not include any attempt to defund Planned Parenthood but will include as much as $40 billion in spending cuts.

House Republicans had previously spent an hour discussing the budget negotiations in an unusual late-night session as rumors swirled outside. The Tea Party, at least, wasn't happy about what they were hearing. At about 9:30 EST, Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation had tweeted, "Boehner is selling us out tonight. We will primary Boehner next year."

About ten minutes earlier, Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo had tweeted, "Whoops! Cat out of bag." His tweet included a link to the image of an apparently premature press release from Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), announcing a "three-day budget agreement reached by bipartisan negotiators in the Senate and House."

According to reports gathered by The Guardian, Politico was suggesting earlier in the evening that the negotiators had "reached agreement on controversial policy riders in the stalled government funding measure, and closed in on a final compromise on cuts around $40 billion." The National Journal was also specifying a deal in which the Republican would drop their attempt to defund Planned Parenthood in return for an additional $1 billion in cuts.