Congress Passes Bill to Study Why Bills Are So Boring – Costs $2.3 Billion
The U.S. Congress has allocated $2.3 billion to study why its proceedings are mind-numbingly dull, a move critics call peak government absurdity.
The FY Times Staff
Published on
Read time
4 min read
The Investigation Begins
The United States Congress, in a rare display of bipartisan unity that lasted exactly 47 minutes, has greenlit the ‘Legislative Engagement and Dullness Investigation Act’ (LEDIA). The act allocates $2.3 billion of taxpayer money to hire 400 consultants, 12 think-tanks, and one retired weatherman to figure out why nobody under 60 can stay awake through a floor speech. According to the bill’s sponsor, Senator Blandford Q. Bland (R-Snore), the study will ‘deploy cutting-edge yawn metrics’ and ‘advanced snooze algorithms’ to quantify exactly how many Americans switch to Netflix the moment C-SPAN appears.
The Fine Print
Factual nugget: The U.S. Government Accountability Office reports Congress has passed only 85 public laws in the current session, the lowest since the 1930s, while authorising $1.7 trillion in discretionary spending. The LEDIA itself is tucked inside the 1,547-page National Defense Authorization Act, page 1,342, between funding for hypersonic catapults and a pilot program for military-grade energy drinks.
The Satirical Twist
Satirical twist: Insiders say the consultants will be paid $1,200 an hour to watch paint dry in a control group, then compare it to committee hearings. Early leaks suggest the paint is winning by a 3:1 margin. One anonymous staffer quipped, ‘At least the paint doesn’t filibuster.’ The study is expected to conclude in 2031, conveniently after every current member has either retired to a lobbying gig or been replaced by their slightly younger clone.
What Else Could We Buy?
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office helpfully projects that the $2.3 billion could instead fund 46,000 years of community college tuition, 920,000 EV charging stations, or 2.3 million lifetime supplies of instant ramen for broke constituents. But priorities: the ramen doesn’t vote on appropriations. Critics on the left call it corporate welfare for PowerPoint consultants; critics on the right call it essential R&D for future campaign ads featuring dramatic slow-motion yawning. Libertarians just set their hair on fire and ran in circles.
A National Security Threat?
In a press conference, Speaker Mike Johnson assured reporters the money is ‘100 % necessary because dullness is a national security threat.’ When asked for evidence, he cited a classified briefing that allegedly showed Russian bots falling asleep mid-troll during the last State of the Union. The Pentagon refused to confirm or deny, citing operational somnolence.
The Final Vote
The bill passed 312–123, with 52 members voting ‘present’ because they were literally present only in the Zoom sense, attending from a beach in Aruba. LEDIA now heads to the President’s desk, where it will be signed with a pen made from recycled campaign promises. God bless America, land of the free and home of the 400-page rider nobody read.