The immediate crisis may have been averted early Saturday morning, but the budget crunch and the battles are just getting started.

Congress and the Obama administration found a way to compromise late Friday and early Saturday, avoiding the government shut down that had loomed for weeks.

Hopefully this can be the start of more give-and-take efforts to find common ground among our nation’s leaders.

The acrimonious bickering, political grandstanding and partisan blindness that has come from both sides of the aisle in recent weeks won’t help us find legitimate solutions to trim the budget and cut into an out-of-control deficit.

Ideally, this agreement will carry the nation for the rest of fiscal year,which ends in September, can be a springboard for a rational and objective conversation about the 2012 budget.

All the parties had to give up something to get this plan to pass, a proposal that cut almost $40 billion in spending.

It will take that same level of sacrifice — and then some — when next year’s budget is started to be ironed out.

Everyone knows that Republicans and Democrats have vastly different philosophical views on the role of government. That has been made abundantly clear in recent weeks.

But it is unproductive to unflinchingly hold to these views without a willingness to compromise.

The future of our nation depends on our elected leaders finding a way to work together collectively, regardless of the demographics and labels that make up the individuals.