Yesterday, Congress finished work on the federal budget for fiscal year 2008, at long last. The budget provides $2.9 trillion for the year, including $933 billion in discretionary spending – that is, non-mandatory or entitlement spending. These figures are precisely what President Bush called for in his budget request back in February. After approving its own budget calling for $955 billion, the new Democratic majority in Congress fought bitterly with President Bush for months over the $22 billion difference.

When the dust settled, the Democrats appeared to have capitulated on all of their spending demands, yielding first on their insistence on meeting the President halfway at $11 billion in additional spending, and then entirely, as the White House issued veto threat after veto threat of spending bills just fractionally over its own requests, repeatedly labeling them "irresponsible and excessive." It appears the Democrats capitulated serially to Bush’s budget demands. On closer examination, however, they managed quietly to redirect billions of dollars in funding to support their own program priorities at the expense of the president’s.

But you won't hear too much about that. The media has focused on the tale of the topline and headlines in the nation's newspapers have echoed the "capitulation" theme.

Make no mistake, the budget negotiations were a rout, and resolution was bought at a steep price, $70 billion in so-called "emergency" spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that utterly overwhelmed the amounts that Bush had called excessive all year long. The NIH budget was lowered by $760 million from the level approved by Congress earlier in the year but vetoed by Bush. The Centers for Disease Control lost $240 million from the vetoed level. Education aid for disadvantaged students lost $280 million. Special education lost $250 million from the vetoed level.

And Bush successfully avoided efforts to remove billions of dollars in tax breaks enjoyed by oil companies and hedge fund managers. He stopped funding to provide additional health insurance coverage for millions of children as well as cancer research and education. He won fight after fight against Democrats seeking to impose benchmarks and dates for troop withdrawal in Iraq.

So Bush won the Battle of the Topline. With Congress finally acceding to his $933 billion discretionary spending cap and several other funding issues, he's decided to not sweat the small stuff. We've heard nary a peep out of the White House about "re-arranged" spending under the topline that pulls about $11 billion out of Bush priorities and redirects them to Democratic priority programs.

In the biggest funding shift the Democrats managed, $3.7 billion is earmarked for veterans' health care and other veterans' benefits, after letters came in from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, and the Disabled Veterans of America, all of which asked Bush to accept the additional funds without cutting elsewhere. Democrats found ways to provide additional funding for drought relief for Southeastern farmers; the financially malnourished Women, Infants and Children nutrition program; the rebuilding of the collapsed Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis; low-income heating assistance; wildfire suppression; and assistance to World Trade Center rescue workers suffering from health problems.

Medical research into diseases including Alzheimer's, cancer, Parkinson's disease and diabetes received $607 million more than Bush wanted. Community health centers and other programs reaching out to the uninsured and underinsured would get $1 billion more than in Bush's budget. Rural health care would get an additional $147 million.

Some signature programs were spared, thanks to last-minute efforts by Democrats. Teacher quality grants, after-school programs and Head Start came in for $767 million in additional funding, while Pell Grants and other higher education assistance programs got $1.7 billion more than Bush requested. The State and local law enforcement as well and homeland security grants would be increased by $3 billion. Full funding restorations were seen in the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which Bush sought to cut by 94 percent, and in vocational education for technical training at high schools and community colleges, which Bush proposed to cut by 50 percent.

To find the money, lawmakers shifted $6 billion from Bush's plans for defense, foreign aid and military base construction accounts. A number of Bush's pet projects were slashed to make room for these Democratic priorities. Reading First, part of Bush’s No Child Left Behind program and beset by mismanagement and conflicts of interest, was brought down to $393 million, $626 million below Bush’s request. Bush's top foreign aid initiative, the Millennium Challenge Corp., which provides aid to countries making economic and democratic gains, is cut $208 million below 2007 levels, to $1.5 billion, half of Bush's request.

Bush proposed to eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting outright; instead the budget allocates it $420 million for fiscal 2010, or a $20 million increase over fiscal 2009. The $140 million Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides nutritionally balanced boxes of food to about a half-million mostly elderly poor people per month was "zeroed-out" by Bush but given a 30 percent budget boost by Democrats.

When the 2007 budget battle is recalled, no doubt people will remember the Democrats' fruitless negotiations with themselves, the President's veto madness and late-term discovery of fiscal frugality, and the two parties hurtling year-end on a breakneck course toward government shutdown. They will recollect the Big Blink, as leaders Reid and Pelosi seemed to cave in a sudden series of capitulations, accepting final budget numbers that looked as if they had taken dictation from Bush. But maybe they will also read the fine print and see all those Democratic devils in the details.