Hold Your Noses

That so-called "push-out" provision, also known as Section 716, required banks and other institutions to move certain risky financial instruments into separate entities in order to limit the exposure of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve -- i.e., taxpayers -- from having to bail the financial institutions out if the deals go south. Banks remained able to trade in nearly all derivatives, just not the more exotic ones.

Again, there are some reasonable arguments for undoing the remaining restriction. The change doesn't unravel Dodd-Frank's regulation of derivative instruments. Section 716 was controversial from the start, with some bank regulators arguing it would increase systemic risk, not reduce it. The impact of the change is debatable; after all, according to FDIC Vice Chairman Tom Hoenig, who opposes undoing the provision, it would not affect 95 percent of derivatives.

Of course, changes like this should be made in the ordinary course of legislative business, not stuffed into a Cromnibus. So why would I express relief about the Cromnibus' passage?

Because, to some extent, my reference to the ordinary course of legislative business is civics textbook hooey. In practice, it has long been true that special-interest goodies are tucked into must-pass bills. Real-world legislating requires a horrific amount of nose-holding.

The reason is simple: The imperative for horse-trading and compromising is an immutable fact of political life. And so the question, for lawmakers and the Obama administration, is not whether the measure is perfect -- it's whether the trade-offs are acceptable. This is a judgment call; reasonable people, even reasonable Democrats, can differ.

In the case of the Cromnibus, the upside is a year of funding certainty and a better deal than could be extracted in the next Congress. Democrats avoid being blamed for causing a shutdown, but, post-floor fight, reap the benefit of having fired a shot across the bow of Republicans and the White House as their caucus revolted.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had a legitimate point in contending that House Democrats were being "blackmailed" to vote for the spending bill. Still, there is something worse than legislative sausage-making in Washington. That is the inability to produce any sausage at all.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.