WASHINGTON, DC — After another marathon round of negotiations that stretched well into the evening, Congress proudly announced it had once again solved America’s budget crisis by agreeing to postpone it until a date when it would be substantially more catastrophic.
The bipartisan breakthrough, hailed as “responsible governance,” funds the government just long enough for lawmakers to leave Washington, hold a few town halls, and assure constituents that they’re “working hard on a long-term solution.”
“It’s important not to rush these things,” said one congressional leader while standing in front of a countdown clock now set to expire in just a few months. “The American people expect stability, which is why we’ve carefully moved this crisis to a point in the future where it will involve higher stakes, greater market uncertainty, and significantly angrier cable news panels.”
Under the agreement, Congress will revisit the issue only after adding several trillion more dollars to the national debt, ensuring that future negotiations are conducted under even greater pressure. Economists praised the move as “consistent,” noting that lawmakers have developed a highly refined system in which every emergency is solved by creating an even larger emergency.
Wall Street initially rallied on the news before remembering the date of the next funding deadline and quietly opening a fresh tab labeled “Uh Oh.”
Political strategists from both parties celebrated the compromise, explaining that kicking the can down the road remains one of the few truly bipartisan traditions left in Washington.
“It’s a beautiful system,” one veteran aide explained. “Every few months we tell everyone the government is hours away from catastrophe, spend several days blaming each other, pass a bill at 2:17 in the morning, congratulate ourselves for averting disaster, and immediately begin preparing for the exact same disaster all over again.”
At press time, congressional leaders had already formed a bipartisan working group to determine the most inconvenient possible date for the next fiscal cliff, preferably one that overlaps with a holiday weekend and an election year.
