(CNN) On Wednesday night, congressional leaders unveiled a spending bill that will fund the entire federal government through September -- at a whopping estimated cost of $1.3 trillion. The bill is 2,322 pages long. It has be to be passed through both chambers of Congress by midnight Friday or else the government shuts down. Again.

Some quick back-of-the-envelope math shows that if every lawmaker stayed up for 48 straight hours -- the time, roughly, between when the so-called "omnibus" bill was unveiled and when it needs to be passed -- they would need to read an average of 48 pages per hour, every hour, to read the entire thing. Which seems, um, unlikely.

"I don't even know if I'll have time to read it," admitted Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy to CNN's Daniella Diaz on Wednesday. "I just got a 10 or 15 minute explanation over lunch. I'm still not sure what's in it. I'll probably get a memo this afternoon in Swahili."

Kennedy may be disgusted. And, hell, the bill could be written in Swahili. But, you can be sure that he -- and lots and lots of his fellow Republicans (and Democrats) will vote for it in a day and a half or so.

Why? Because shutting down the government is playing political Russian roulette. And no politician wants to do that this close to an election. And because spending bill like this one are absolutely larded with goodies for specific members of each party. That's one of the major reasons the bill is just so damn long.

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