Princeton University professor Paul Krugman noted that by agreeing to this level of budget cuts, Obama had accepted the premise that the economy has recovered enough to withstand the withdrawal of federal spending. Despite the fragile economic recovery, the economy is still not strong enough, Krugman argued.

“It’s worth noting that this follows just a few months after another big concession, in which he gave in to Republican demands for tax cuts,” Krugman said in his New York Times column on Saturday. “The net effect of these two sets of concessions is, of course, a substantial increase in the deficit.”…

“The American people have been told the agreement contains both ‘historic’ and ‘painful’ cuts. The question will be painful for whom,” said Rep. George Miller in a statement in shortly after the California Democrat and other Democrats voted against the first of two pieces of legislation that would allow the government to stay open for rest of the fiscal year…

Eleanor Holmes Norton, who occupies Washington’s at-large congressional seat but does not have a vote in the House, called the administration and Senate Democrats hypocritical for not defending access to women’s health services in the District with the same vigor with which they defended Planned Parenthood’s funding at the national level.