Late Friday night, Republicans and Democrats agreed to a last-minute deal to avert a shutdown and fund the government through the rest of the 2011 fiscal year, which ends on September 30.
The Republicans got $38.5 billion in cuts, but dropped many of the policy "riders"—add-on provisions restricting how money can be spent—that social conservatives (who wanted to restrict abortion rights) and big business (which wanted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases) had sought.
Planned Parenthood, a major target of social conservatives, was able to avoid losing the federal funding that it receives through a law called Title X ("title ten") for cancer screenings, birth control, and other non-abortion health services. Democrats were also able to kill a provision that would have prevented any federal money from going to the organization.
The fight was a study in the priorities of the modern Democratic party. Planned Parenthood, remember, was subjected to almost the same attack that ACORN, an organization that specialized in registering and organizing poor and minority voters, faced in 2009.
See more at: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/04/what-shutdown-deal-says-about-dems
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