Remember, I'm a political cynic. I don't have any respect for most republicans, democrats, politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists or any of the other labels you can place on people who think they run things. Government, now more than ever, is something to be avoided and to work around. As an institution, it does not have my (or anyone's) best interests in mind on any level, and any benefits we receive from government is incidental to the process.
Government can only limit or take away freedom. Freedom is built in to the human equation. God gave each of us free will, and life provides consequences to our actions within the paradigm we live in. Government claims to improve that paradigm, and to the extent that it does, I'm all for it. But that's not inherently what any government, now or at any time in the past has done.
Government does not create wealth (sorry, Mr. Obama). Government only redistributes wealth. Again, the paradigm argument goes here. Government creates the paradigm under which I can create wealth, and give it to the government for redistribution. But for every example of that principle, there is an example of government limiting or eliminating my ability to create wealth.
So the Democrats won the showdown. What did they win?
An extension of the argument for a few months (same as they won last time?).
The ability to deepen the debt problems we face because all of government spends trillions of dollars we don't have. (Is that a victory?).
What did the Republicans lose?
Face. Not because they lost the battle, but because nobody (not even the leaders of the party) knew what they were trying to accomplish anyway.
I think we all lose. But it's just a game. God never created us to spend our whole lives chasing dollars. This money game is just a made up game, played with money that has no intrinsic value. And the game's almost over.
Pretty soon, it will all go back in the box and a new game will start. And we can do it all over again.