“We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” said Mr. Obama, who urged Congress to proceed not only with new budget negotiations, but with immigration changes and a farm bill as well. “We could get all these things done even this year, if everybody comes together in a spirit of, how are we going to move this country forward and put the last three weeks behind us?” 
 
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 After the House vote, officials announced that the federal government would reopen on Thursday and that federal employees should return to work. 
 
 The result of the impasse that threatened the nation’s credit rating was a near total defeat for Republican conservatives, who had engineered the budget impasse as a way to strip the new health care law of funding even as registration for benefits opened Oct. 1 or, failing that, to win delays in putting the program into place. 
 
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 The shutdown sent Republican poll ratings plunging, cost the government billions of dollars and damaged the nation’s international credibility. Mr. Obama refused to compromise, leaving Republican leaders to beg him to talk, and to fulminate when he refused. For all that, Republicans got a slight tightening of income verification rules for Americans accessing new health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. 
 
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 “We fought the good fight,” said Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who has struggled to control the conservative faction in the House, in an interview with a Cincinnati radio station. “We just didn’t win.” 
 
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 In a brief closed session with his Republican rank and file, Mr. Boehner told members to hold their heads high, go home, get some rest and think about how they could work better as a team. 
 
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 Two weeks of relative cohesion broke down into near chaos on Tuesday when Republican leaders failed twice to unite their troops behind a last-gasp effort to prevent a default on their own terms. By Wednesday, House conservatives were accusing more moderate Republicans of undercutting their position. Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, a leading Republican voice for ending the fight, said Congress should have passed a bill to fund the government without policy strings attached weeks ago. 
 
 “That’s essentially what we’re doing now,” Mr. Dent said. “People can blame me all they want, but I was correct in my analysis and I’d say a lot of those folks were not correct in theirs.” 
 
 Under the agreement to reopen the government, the House and Senate are directed to hold talks and reach accord by Dec. 13 on a long-term blueprint for tax and spending policies over the next decade. Mr. Obama said consistently through the standoff that he was willing to have a wide-ranging budget negotiation once the government was reopened and the debt limit raised. 
 
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 Mr. Boehner and his leadership team had long felt that they needed to allow their restive conference to pitch a battle over the president’s health care law, a fight that had been brewing almost since the law was passed in 2010. Now, they hope the fever has broken, and they can negotiate on issues where they think they have the upper hand, like spending cuts and changes to entitlement programs. 
 
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 But there were no guarantees that Congress would not be at loggerheads again by mid-January, and there is deep skepticism in both parties that Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, who will lead the budget negotiations, can bridge the chasm between them. 
 
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 “This moves us into the next phase of the same debate,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat. “Our hope is now that Speaker Boehner and his caucus have played out their scenario with a tragic outcome, perhaps they’ll be willing to be more constructive.” 
 
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 As Republican lawmakers left the closed meeting Wednesday, some were already thinking of the next fight. 
 
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 “I’ll vote against it,” said Representative John C. Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, referring to the Senate plan. “But that will get us into Round 2. See, we’re going to start this all over again.” 
 
 Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader who was instrumental in ending the crisis, stressed that under the deal he had negotiated with the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the across-the-board budget cuts extracted in the 2011 fiscal showdown remained in place over the objections of some Democrats, a slim reed that not even he claimed as a significant victory. 
 
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 The deal, Mr. McConnell said, “is far less than many of us hoped for, quite frankly, but it’s far better than what some had sought.” 
 
 “Now it’s time for Republicans to unite behind other crucial goals,” he added. 
 
 Chastened Senate Republicans said they hoped the outcome would be a learning experience for the lawmakers in the House and the Senate who shut down the government in hopes of gutting the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement. Instead of using the twin issues of government funding and borrowing authority to address the drivers of the federal deficit, conservatives focused on a law they could never undo as long as Mr. Obama is president, several lawmakers said. 
 
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 “Goose egg, nothing, we got nothing,” said Representative Thomas H. Massie, Republican of Kentucky. 
 
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 Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina took a swipe at his fellow Republican senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as House members who linked government financing to defunding the health care law, which is financed by its own designated revenues and spending cuts. 
 
 “Let’s just say sometimes learning what can’t be accomplished is an important long-term thing,” Mr. Burr said, “and hopefully for some of the members they’ve learned it’s impossible to defund mandatory programs by shutting down the federal government.” 
 
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 While Mr. Cruz conceded defeat, he did not express contrition. 
 
 “Unfortunately, the Washington establishment is failing to listen to the American people,” he said as he emerged from a meeting of Senate Republicans called to ratify the agreement. 
 
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 For hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country furloughed from their jobs, the legislative deal meant an abrupt end to their forced vacation as the government comes back to life beginning Thursday. 
 
 In a statement late Wednesday, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, made the reopening official. 
 
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 “Employees should expect to return to work in the morning,” she said, adding they should check news reports and the Office of Personnel Management’s Web site for updates. 
 
 For Mr. Boehner, who had failed to unite his conference around a workable plan, Wednesday’s decision to take up the Senate bill proved surprisingly free of conflict. Hard-line Republican lawmakers largely rallied around the speaker. 
 
 Representative Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, said he was “really proud” of how Mr. Boehner had handled the situation. “I’m more upset with my Republican conference, to be honest with you,” he said. ||||| The margin could be razor thin, but House Republicans think they will pass their funding bill before the government shuts down Thursday. 
 
 Top aides and lawmakers on the GOP whip team privately say they believe between 150 and 175 Republicans will support the $1.1 trillion, nine-month government funding bill. And senior House Democrats predict that some of their members will help make up for the Republican defections to get the bill across the finish line. 
 
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 House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his staff have been in contact with Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) throughout the whole process, despite Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) public proclamation that Democrats were worried about provisions tucked into the bill that would loosen Wall Street regulations and campaign finance laws. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Budget bill shows GOP's new muscle) 
 
 In fact, the deal to jack up donation limits to national party committees was negotiated by top aides to a leading Democrat and Republican: Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 
 
 Of course, things could fall apart – it’s the last day of the 113th Congress, a less-than serendipitous two-year stretch that included a government shutdown and plenty of misjudgments by the House Republican leadership. 
 
 But the state of play in the final hours before a vote appears to set up Republican leaders to keep their post-election promise to avert any major crisis in the lame duck session, setting a smooth transition to control of Capitol Hill in January. 
 
 And even the worst-case scenario isn’t bad for either party: if the larger funding package falls apart, Boehner will put a three-month stop-gap spending bill on the floor to set up a fiscal fight next year when Republicans have control of both chambers. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Budget winners and losers) 
 
 In back-channel conversations, White House officials signaled to Capitol Hill Democrats that they prefer the so-called “cromnibus” than the short-term stop-gap bill. The larger package locks in many Democratic - and Republican - funding priorities deep into 2015. 
 
 As of late Wednesday evening, Republicans were not formally making fallback plans if the bill failed, and House Democrats weren’t formally whipping against the measure. House Democratic leadership plans to meet Thursday morning ahead of the vote. The government will begin to shut down by Friday morning if nothing passes. Almost no one expects a shutdown. 
 
 The session of Congress that started with a failed coup attempt against Boehner will likely end with a bipartisan vote to fund the government – including Obamacare and the president’s changes to immigration law that conservatives hate. 
 
 “Without the threat of a government shutdown, this sets up a direct challenge to the president’s unilateral action on immigration when we have new majorities in both chambers of Congress,” Boehner said, explaining his strategy heading into next year. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Coburn threatens spending deal over defense bill) 
 
 But there was plenty of angst Wednesday, and Republican and Democratic leaders are hoping it subsides by Thursday morning. 
 
 First of all, lawmakers are angry that they only had one full day to read a 1,600-page spending bill that extends all government funding through September 2015, and Homeland Security funding through February. 
 
 When lawmakers started digging into the bill, they found a provision that helps big banks trade derivatives in units backstopped by a government guarantee. And another last-minute addition would allow all national party committees to collect $777,000 each year from individuals, up from $32,400 annually under current law. 
 
 High-profile lawmakers like Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) vowed to vote against the bill, backed by progressive groups on the outside who were seizing on Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) skepticism. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Reid's new mission: Blocking 'crazy stuff') 
 
 Republicans were already worried that the legislation doesn’t pick a strong enough fight with Obama over his unilateral changes to immigration law – a few conservative members like Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and Rep. Tom McClintock of California privately questioned the strategy. Boehner also faced criticism for breaking one of his central 2010 campaign promises: that he would advance legislative issues one at a time. 
 
 “All these provisions in this bill got worked out in a bipartisan bicameral fashion or they wouldn’t be in the bill,” the speaker said. Boehner added, “When you get to the end of a two-year session of Congress, a lot of work gets built up and never gets to cross one floor or the other floor. And as a result, when we get to the end of session, members try to find a way to get their legislation across the finish line because of not really issues on the House side, more issues on the Senate side, to facilitate their ability to move legislation, some of the stuff ends up in one bill.” 
 
 The mood was tense in the Capitol Wednesday when GOP leaders started whipping the bill and Senate Democrats were unsure how many of their House counterparts would vote for the bill. But Pelosi and Boehner have been in close contact. On Wednesday morning when they spoke, Boehner demurred when Pelosi asked how many Democratic votes he needed. That responsibility falls to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Boehner answered. Boehner warned Pelosi that if the large bill failed, he would have a short-term funding bill ready for immediate consideration. 
 
 If Republican defections swell, Scalise could catch blame, but if the GOP posts better-than-expected numbers, he’ll start off the 114th Congress with a stronger hand. 
 
 Pelosi is trying to regain her own strong hand, which has been weakened dramatically by her party’s disastrous showing on Election Day. She was involved in the negotiations, but objected to many of the last-minute additions to the package - and is using the situation to boost her sway with disaffected Democrats. Pelosi believes she can get Republicans to change the bill, but GOP leadership staff has repeatedly made clear that they will not change the omnibus. 
 
 Republicans have one victory in this lame duck: they cleared a renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act by a huge margin. The GOP leadership had hoped to include this legislation in the omnibus, but House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) insisted the TRIA extension include unrelated changes to the Dodd-Frank financial services law. Democrats protested, but the bill passed with 417 votes.
– The conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal sounds pretty hopeful that the troubles of ObamaCare will translate into solid GOP gains in next year's midterms. But the editors also see signs that Republicans are going to once again blow it with a "stupid, futile budget standoff." This time, it's defense hawks such as Rep. Buck McKeon who might break party ranks, thanks to Pentagon cuts mandated by current law. His intent is honorable, say the editors, but he and fellow hawks need to stand down for the sake of the party. "If 20 or so GOP Members vote with Nancy Pelosi to ditch the budget caps, Republicans can't pass a government funding bill before the current continuing resolution expires early next year," they write. "This could trigger another shutdown and pell-mell political retreat that makes the GOP again look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight." Republicans have to remain united—the lesson they should have learned from the last budget mess—and "Boehner must finally show enough leadership and toughness to keep his Members in line." Click for the full editorial. (Meanwhile, a Politico story suggests that a genuine deal is in the works to avoid a shutdown this time around.)