After the 16 day shutdown, Congress voted late last night to reopen federal agencies, raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit, and call hundreds of thousands of civil servants back to work. An agreement struck by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ended a stalemate created last month when conservative GOP members used the threat of a shutdown in an attempt to block Obamacare. Sixteen days later, republicans were ready to give President Obama what he asked for month ago - a bill to fund the government and increase the Treasury Department’s borrowing power. Payback for government employees and money for the floods in Colorado, among other things, were included in the bill - read in full here.

The Senate overwhelmingly ratified the deal Wednesday evening, 81 to 18, with more than half of Senate Republicans voting in favor of the bill. A few hours later the House did the same, voting 285-144, 87 votes Republican. The majority of House republicans - the majority of the majority - still opposed the bill, which bodes an unlikelihood for progress come Dec 13, Jan 15, Feb 7.

The good news it that the country's arts and cultural insititutions are re-open for business today. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services tagged the shutdown taking $24 billion in total out of the economy. How did our nation's valuable art galleries, museums, zoos, etc. fare?

• Glen Echo reported over a $250,000 loss – the ballroom dancing closure made news.

• The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees estimated that as of last week, more than 7 million visitors had been barred from national parks due to the shutdown, resulting in the loss of an estimated $750 million in visitor spending. However, many states used state funding during the shutdown to open parks given the substantial cultural tourism economic losses.

• The National Tour Association testified in a House Oversight and Gov’t Reform Committee hearing on 10/16 and provided survey results and data estimates from the U.S. Travel Association that the country lost $152 million daily.

The Washington City Paper reported that of all the museums and exhibits effected by the shutdown, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which should have been opening their blockbuster “Yoga: The Art of Transformation” exhibit - several thousand years worth of Asian artwork that tells the history of yoga. They'll be unlikely to recover completely from the shutdown occuring in what was supposed to be their large opening month.

Ironically, during the shutdown, Members of Congress were seen taking constituents on capitol tours of student artwork. During this trying time, even as the shutdown negatively effected the arts industry, art provided our lawmakers - and us all -with some relief from the stress of our political atmosphere.