CONGRESS AVERTS SHUTDOWN BY SCHEDULING IDENTICAL SHUTDOWN FOR DECEMBER
Senate passes stopgap bill, praises itself for buying time it has no intention of using.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to fund the federal government into early December, narrowly avoiding a shutdown by instead pre-booking one for right after the holidays, when everyone will have significantly less energy to care. Lawmakers described the continuing resolution as a hard-won bipartisan achievement, despite it containing zero new decisions, one new deadline, and a growing sense that 'kicking the can' has quietly become the actual constitutional duty of Congress.
Budget documents show the bill's only original line item is $2.4 million earmarked for what staffers are calling 'can-kicking infrastructure' — reportedly extra calendar pages and a ceremonial sneaker kept in the Capitol basement for symbolic punts. 'We're buying time the way people buy gym memberships in January,' said Senate Budget aide Derek Holtz, admiring the sneaker. 'With great ceremony and no intention of using it.' Holtz added that the December deadline was strategically chosen to clear the midterms, giving lawmakers a full campaign season to promise voters they'll definitely fund the government this time, for real, they mean it.
Financial markets, federal workers, and calendar manufacturers nationwide have reportedly begun treating the new deadline as a recurring holiday, tentatively dubbed 'Fiscal Cliff Eve,' complete with the traditions of last-minute panic, symbolic finger-pointing, and a midnight vote nobody read. Congressional leadership insists this is not procrastination but 'responsible governance in installments,' though critics note the installments never seem to arrive at an actual plan. As one exhausted appropriations staffer put it, 'We didn't solve the crisis. We just gave it a sequel, a release date, and a slightly bigger budget for cans.'
