There is big excitement on the US political scene this week with the news that Congress has finally passed a budget to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2014 (see page 461). The good news for US scientists is that support for their work remains strong: most research-funding agencies (with the notable exception of the National Institutes of Health) have seen a partial restoration of funding after the across-the-board cuts mandated last year under the sequester.

But the better news for everyone is the existence of the settlement itself: it marks the first return in years to anything resembling a normal budget process. Given the poisonous partisanship that has dominated US politics in recent years, the simple act of funding the government — achieving what any other country would consider routine — has required gruelling negotiations and rare political courage. Better still, the success of those efforts offers at least some hope that they will be repeated in future years — that the stranglehold of the uncompromising, anti-government, largely Republican minority known as the Tea Party has at last been broken.

Credit for the budget’s success goes in the first instance to Representative Paul Ryan (Republican, Wisconsin) and Senator Patty Murray (Democrat, Washington), chairs of the House and Senate budget committees, respectively. In the aftermath of last autumn’s government shutdown, Ryan and Murray negotiated an overall budget figure of US$1.1 trillion that eases some of the sequester cuts beloved of Republicans while excluding unemployment benefits favoured by Democrats. In the process, they faced down claims of betrayal from both sides.

Arguably, even more credit is due to Representative Hal Rogers (Republican, Kentucky), who chairs the House appropriations committee, and Senator Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland), chair of the Senate equivalent. They had the unenviable job of allocating the overall budget among specific departments and programmes. These two politicians disagree on almost every issue. But they had the sense and judgement to agree on this: even leaving aside the disaster of the shutdown and the mindlessness of the sequester, Congress cannot keep on funding the government year to year with ‘continuing resolutions’ that avoid making choices, and instead keep programmes going on a yearly basis just as they were. The result is waste, turmoil and missed opportunities in the agencies, in which demoralized officials are forced to defer long-planned initiatives, hoard the money they do have and spend their days endlessly planning and replanning.

Once Ryan and Murray’s overall budget number was in hand, Rogers, Mikulski and their staff worked almost non-stop to agree on allocations. They both had to deal with members of their own parties who wanted to attach amendments promoting this or that pet cause, and plenty of those measures did make it into the final bill. But they managed to fend off the worst of the ‘poison pill’ amendments that were designed to force the opposite party to vote against the final package — including one that would have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions to fight climate change.

Finally, credit is due to the rank-and-file members of Congress who passed the budget bill by overwhelming bipartisan majorities — despite threats from staunchly partisan political groups to use those votes against members in the upcoming November elections, when every Representative and one-third of Senators will face the voters.

The problem now is that the current spending agreement runs only until 1 October, the start of fiscal year 2015. If no new overall budget is agreed, the dreaded sequester will return, and with it the automatic, widespread budget reductions totalling roughly $100 billion every year until 2023. Rogers and Mikulski have vowed to pursue a new agreement as part of their wider intention to continue Congress’ return to normal procedure. But in an election year, it is not clear whether they will have enough time. To allow everyone ample opportunity to campaign, the House is scheduled to be in session for only 113 days this year, and the Senate for just less than 200. Nor is it clear how much courage anyone will maintain once the negative campaign adverts start flying.

Ultimately, it may come down to how well individual members of Congress learned the lessons of the shutdown, which sent public-approval ratings for their institution spiralling into the single digits late last year. If memories are short, and members sink back into a miasma of mistrust and gridlock, then sequestration looms.

Instead, if they can return to behaving like rational adults, then there is hope. Perhaps Congress can start making the kind of investments in research, education and infrastructure, such as broadband and smart grids, that both parties say are needed — and that foster the kind of economic growth that both parties say they want.