The last-minute spending deal among Congressional leaders adds money to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are reporting. The revival of the scholarship is a top priority of House Speaker John Boehner, who has sponsored a measure that passed the House last month. That was just about the time the White House issued a statement asserting that the scholarship has proven ineffective.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid said of the eleventh-hour negotiations: “We didn’t do it at this late hour for drama, we did it because it’s been very hard to arrive at this point. Both sides have had to make tough choices.”
[...] So I hear the federal government came really close to shutting down this past weekend. Bigger people than me can tell you whether the last-minute deal to avert a shutdown was in total a good deal or not. But I do know one aspect of the deal that is definitely praiseworthy: namely, that the SOAR Act reauthorizing and expanding the D.C. school voucher program was adopted. [...]
[...] RefinED points out Harry Reid’s comment about the 11th hour “drama” not having been intended. [...]