President Barack Obama praised a US budget deal reached Tuesday among bipartisan congressional negotiators as a "good first step" to overcome recurring crises that have wracked the government since 2011. "It's a good sign that Democrats and Republicans in Congress were able to come together and break the cycle of short-sighted, crisis-driven decision-making to get this done," the president said of the agreement that, if passed, would avoid a disastrous repeat of a government shutdown that paralyzed Washington in October.