NOAH ADAMS, host: From NPR News, this is Weekends on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Guy Raz is away. I'm Noah Adams.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: It was a tale of two budgets this week. Congress passed a budget for this year, fiscal 2011, that prevented a government shutdown and included 38.5 billion in spending cuts.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: The president and leaders of both parties praised each other for reaching a last-minute budget compromise. But the good feelings didn't last long; when the president introduced his plan to tackle the country's long-term deficit problems, it drew this response.</s>Representative PAUL RYAN (Republican, Wisconsin): Rather than building bridges, he's poisoning wells.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: That is Paul Ryan, the Republicans' point man on the budget. Ryan has introduced a plan for 2012 that cuts trillions in spending and fundamentally changes Medicare.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: In his speech on Wednesday, with Paul Ryan sitting in the front row, the president responded to Ryan's plan, with this stinging rebuttal.</s>President BARACK OBAMA: They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that's paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs. That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm president.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: President Obama's proposal includes spending cuts and tax hikes over the next 12 years.</s>NOAH ADAMS, host: And so the stage was set for the House to vote on the Republican budget plan. The plan passed in the House without a single Democrat voting for it. The back and forth can be head-spinning. The debate is not likely to cool down anytime soon.
Just because there wasn't a government shutdown doesn't mean the budget battles in the Capitol slowed down. A look back at Congress' 2011 budget compromise and what's in the works for 2012.