This post has been updated. And Barack Obama has signed the bill. JOURNALISTS occasionally get mocked for leaving things until the last minute. But a fingernail-chewing tabloid hack would struggle to compete with Congress for excellence in procrastination. Having known for months that the debt ceiling had to be raised in the autumn to avoid a default, and having known for a few weeks that the Treasury reckoned that October 17th was the magic day, Senators finally struck a deal on October 16th. The agreement will finance the government at sequestration-levels until January 15th and raise the debt ceiling until February 7th. In the meantime, negotiators are required to complete work on a ten-year budget plan by December 13th. In return for ending the crisis Democrats have made a small concession to those who want to gut the Affordable Care Act: income verification rules for people obtaining subsidised health insurance on the new exchanges will tightened.

That will hardly satisfy conservatives in the House, but they have played themselves out of the game with their intransigence. Two attempts by John Boehner, the Republican speaker, to rally his caucus behind a deal failed on October 15th. The next day Mr Boehner was forced to break the so-called Hastert rule—an informal principle under which only bills supported by a majority of his party are put up for a vote. After the Senate passed its deal by a vote of 81 to 18, Mr Boehner put it before the House, where it passed with mostly Democratic support by a vote of 285 to 144.

America has perfected a form of dysfunctional governance that relies on frantic negotiations and last-minute deals to end self-imposed crises. It's no way to run a country. Each time politicians bring America to the brink of disaster it chips away at the country's image and undermines its creditworthiness. The consequences should not be overstated, but the slow erosion of trust in American promises—most notably its promise to pay its debts—is no less a cause for concern than the disaster seemingly avoided.

And the damage continues. The resolution to this failed extortion attempt sets the stage for a renewed effort in three-months time. For Republicans, it may seem less reasonable now to think that budgetary and debt-ceiling brinkmanship will bear fruit. But it was unreasonable to believe that the president's signature domestic policy might be exchanged for economic hostages in the first place. Good sense, or perhaps good leadership, appears to be lacking in the party. Mr Boehner has proven unable to control his more radical members.

Further political paralysis is likely. This makes politicians' habit of creating crises which can only be resolved through movement either a touching act of faith or a strange delusion.

(Photo credit: AFP)