Shutdown drama: Who's to blame?

A Capitol policewoman walks through the empty Rotunda. STORY HIGHLIGHTSWilliam Bennett: Was President Obama serious about bringing deficits under control?Paul Begala: Democrats, independents want compromise; most Republicans don'tRuben Navarrette: The dispute isn't about Planned Parenthood but about levels of spendingSteven Taylor: If agreement can't be reached on these relatively small cuts, what next? (CNN) -- A last-minute agreement averted a government shutdown late Friday, but analysts say the high-stakes standoff revealed persistent issues that Washington still must address. CNN Opinion asked a number of regular contributors and guests for their views.

David Frum, a weekly columnist for CNN and former special assistant to President George W. Bush, is the editor of FrumForum

Obviously this is no way to run a railroad. Still - the train did not crash.

The deal to avert a government shutdown is a story of good news and bad news.

Good news:

The dealmakers in both parties have prevailed over the confrontationalists in both parties. Speaker John Boehner persuaded his Republican Congress to accept "yes" for an answer. President Obama resisted the temptation to entrap the Republicans in a shutdown that would almost certainly have hurt the GOP more than it would have hurt him.

Good news:

If Republicans and Democrats flinched from a government shut down, they will certainly flinch from the much more catastrophic consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling in May. We can reduce the worry level about a politically forced default on the national debt.

Good news:

Washington is beginning to think seriously about restraining the growth of the public debt. Notice I said "begin." We're going to need better answers than we have heard so far, but at least the answers are starting. Somebody tweeted this evening about the paradox of a liberal president hailing budget cuts. But even liberal presidents have to worry about a excess debt - and the signs are there that Obama does worry.

Bad news:

The debate dramatizes how completely budget policy has displaced economic policy in Washington debate. Tonight's action may help stabilize federal finances. But even economists who support spending cuts will acknowledge that the immediate effect of cuts is to subtract demand from the economy. A strongly growing economy can sustain and benefit from this demand-subtraction. The US economy in 2011 is not a strongly growing economy. Yet how much time has the new Congress spent debating ideas to accelerate growth?

More bad news:

The 2011 budget was due in the spring of 2010. Despite control of both houses of Congress, the Democrats irresponsibly failed to enact a budget while they could. We will resume debating temporary funding of the government next week--and then seamlessly move into still fiercer battles over the budget for 2012. The most important and difficult decisions still await.

Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House. He is an affiliated professor at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute:

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