President Barack Obama described the bipartisan budget deal that Congress reached in December as a compromise, "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 two-year agreement set annual federal spending levels at about $1 trillion and averted the potential for another federal government shutdown. The deal provided about $63 billion in relief from automatic cuts to federal spending due to sequestration, offered $85 billion in savings, and produces $23 billion in net deficit reduction.

But largely unnoticed in Hawaii during the holiday crush was that U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz and U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa — rivals in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate — cast different votes.

Schatz voted with the majority, including every Senate Democrat. Hanabusa was one of just 32 Democrats in the House to vote against the deal.

Their split was more than just an interesting anomaly.

Hanabusa is campaigning as the more experienced legislator, with the savvy to identify a bad deal for Hawaii and the independence to go against the majority, even if it means crossing the president and her party’s leadership.

"For me, there were certain things that I had told myself that I cannot support," Hanabusa said. "As a matter of policy."

Schatz — who joined the other Hawaii Democrats, U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in voting for the budget deal — said Hawaii depends on federal money perhaps more than any other state and that it was "imperative that we break the tea party gridlock" over the budget process.

"All Democrats of all stripes," Schatz said of the Senate, "unanimously supported this budget because we understand how critical it is to move beyond the gridlock and to move beyond manufactured crises. And this is really going to help Hawaii’s economy."

The Bipartisan Budget Act, crafted by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was — as Obama described — the "nature of compromise." Both Democrats and Republicans found elements of the deal objectionable yet voted overwhelmingly for its passage in the wake of a government shutdown that dropped congressional job approval ratings to a record low 9 percent.

Obama and Congress were in a very similar predicament in August 2011. Pushed to the brink, Congress approved the Budget Control Act, which raised the debt ceiling and avoided a government default but also established the automatic spending cuts to defense and other federal programs known as sequestration.

Hanabusa voted for the Budget Control Act, and she defended her vote when she ran for re-election in 2012, but over time she has come to regret the decision. Sequestration, which was never supposed to happen because Congress and the president were expected to reach a long-term deficit reduction agreement, happened.

"I didn’t think 2011 carefully enough, in retrospect, now that I have 20/20 hindsight," she said. "But that means I’ve got to learn from that."

THE BUDGET DEAL extends a 2 percent cut to Medicare providers, which was set to expire in 2021 under the Budget Control Act, for an additional two years, cuts that Hanabusa worries will be passed down to seniors. The agreement also requires new federal workers to contribute more to their pension plans and reduces cost-of-living adjustments for military retirees under 62, provisions that the congresswoman contends are unfair and disproportionately impact Hawaii, which has a large federal workforce and military retiree population.

Hanabusa — along with the rest of the congressional delegation — has also protested the increase in the aviation passenger security fee that was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The agreement more than doubled the fee — to $5.60 for a one-way flight, up from $2.50 — inflating the costs for Hawaii residents who are more dependent on air travel than mainland consumers.

"So to me, it’s bad for Hawaii because we have such a large kupuna population. It’s bad for Hawaii because of the TSA (Transportation Security Administration fee). It’s bad for the huge veterans retirement group, as well," she said.

Schatz said the budget deal was part of a compromise, "so by definition, there are going to be elements in it that I don’t like and that the Republicans don’t like. But that’s the nature of a compromise.

"The choice in front of us was whether to vote for continuing gridlock, continuing shutdowns and continuing sequestration, or to start to move beyond all of that and allow our economy to recover from what Congress has done to it."

The budget agreement created the framework for Congress this month to adopt an annual appropriations bill that detailed federal spending, which includes money essential to Hawaii. Hanabusa voted for the appropriations bill.

"It’s hard for me to understand how a member of Hawaii’s congressional delegation can vote against federal funding for the state of Hawaii," Schatz said of Hanabusa’s rejection of the budget deal. "We depend so heavily on federal resources coming to Hawaii. And there’s a reason that three out of the four of us in the delegation supported it, along with every other Democrat in the Senate and the president of the United States."

The Senate voted 64-36 for the budget agreement, with nine Republicans siding with all of the Senate’s Democrats and two independents.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other conservative Republicans who drove the government shutdown, condemned the agreement. Cruz said at the time that the "budget bill exemplifies what is wrong with Washington. Nothing is getting fixed. No important reforms are being addressed. The people get little in return except more debt, more taxes, and no change to the Obamacare disaster."

But the political terrain was different in the House, which approved the deal 332-94. The split among House Democrats was 163-32.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, voted against the deal, as did U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the Democratic whip, broke with other House Democratic leaders and voted "no."

Hanabusa’s allies say she has a history of taking tough votes. For example, in 2003, when she was state Senate majority leader, she was the only Senate Democrat to vote against reinstating binding arbitration for many white-collar public workers. The former labor attorney maintained that the public workers should have kept the right to strike, even though their union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association, wanted binding arbitration.

But would Hanabusa, had she been in the U.S. Senate in December, have been the only Senate Democrat to vote against the budget agreement?

"I could have been the only one," she said. "I’ve been in that position. I’ve been in that position before."