Relax: the Budget Battle is Just Beginning.

I'm not going to comment on the "Shutdown"-avoiding budget deal that Boehner and Reid cobbled together on Friday night. If you consider $38.5 billion in budget cuts too little, you're right. If you think Boehner showed spunk in dealing with the Senate and White House, you may be right. If you think the GOP has sold us all down the river for not getting $eleventy-trillion, you might need to take a breath:

The accomplishment set the stage for even tougher confrontations. Republicans intend to pass a 2012 budget through the House next week that calls for sweeping changes in Medicare and Medicaid and would cut domestic programs deeply in an attempt to gain control over soaring deficits.
And the Treasury has told Congress it must vote to raise the debt limit by summer — a request that Republicans hope to use to force Obama to accept long-term deficit-reduction measures.

Now we have a complete year's worth of budget to make the kind of gigantoid cuts that the Tea Party wants to see. And yeah, a good bit of that won't make it through the Senate, and it's anyone's guess as to whether Obama will sign it if it does. But Boehner has demonstrated that he can get Reid to cut more than he wants to, and that Obama will be largely irrelevant to the procedure.

So keep the popcorn warm and the powder dry. The real show is about to begin.