Think the fiscal cliff caused an awful lot of uncertainty and held back the economy? How about three more cliff-like deadlines over the next three months? 
 
 That's what's in store. The bill approved by the House late Tuesday doesn't address the debt ceiling and temporarily puts off most of the automatic spending cuts otherwise scheduled to take effect Wednesday. 
 
 Here is what's still ahead: 
 
 1. Debt Ceiling: Congress has to raise the debt ceiling soon. Real soon. 
 
 On Monday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner made it official: Federal borrowing has reached the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling. 
 
 The Treasury Department, which runs the government's debt-issuance operation, can create about $200 billion of headroom by employing what it calls "extraordinary measures." That normally could cover about two months' worth of borrowing, although continuing uncertainty about tax rates and spending make it hard to determine precisely how long the extraordinary measures will last. 
 
 Deadline: Late February or early March. 
 
 What's at stake: Last year, political brinksmanship over the debt limit led to the downgrade of the country's credit rating, roiled stock markets and raised questions about the country's willingness to pay all of its bills on time. It also wasted $1.3 billion because of the uncertainty it wrought on the complex task of federal borrowing. 
 
 2. Sequester: The so-called sequester is a series of automatic cuts in federal spending that will reduce the budgets of most agencies and programs by 8% to 10%. 
 
 The cuts were born of the epic 2011 fight over the debt ceiling. The idea was to create a "trigger" so onerous and indiscriminate that both parties would have an incentive to devise a smarter way to reduce deficits. Instead, 17 months later, Congress is considering a deal that would set up yet another deadline. 
 
 Deadline: Bill will postpone many of the Jan. 2 cuts by two months. 
 
 What's at stake: The spending cuts as laid out in 2011 would ripple out across thousands of federal programs and projects and, the White House budget office said in September, "would have a devastating impact on important defense and nondefense programs." 
 
 3. Continuing Budget Resolution: The federal government works on a fiscal year that starts every Oct. 1. Problem is it has been years since it actually enacted a real budget on time. 
 
 There's a process for enacting a budget: Congressional committees are supposed to hold hearings. Experts and interested parties testify about proposals. Lawmakers deliberate over the right spending levels for each federal agency and then roll it all up into a budget. 
 
 But Congress rarely ends up following that process. Instead, it usually passes short-term "continuing resolutions," which is fancy way of saying "Band Aid solution." 
 
 Deadline: The current continuing resolution expires on March 27. 
 
 What's at stake: Congress will have to pass yet another continuing resolution to avoid a temporary shutdown of some government functions, worker furloughs and a pullback in programs. ||||| (Updated 7.00am ET, Jan. 2) 
 
 Despite waves of last-minute drama and discord, the fiscal cliff bill has now been approved by both the US Senate and the House of Representatives, and awaits the president’s signature to be signed into law. 
 
 The final agreement on the deal should minimize any impact of the fiscal cliff—the drastic package of austerity measures and tax hikes triggered as of Jan. 1. Measures that kicked in immediately—such as the suspension of extended unemployment benefits—can be retroactively revoked. 
 
 And investors showed appreciation for the deal, with markets across Europe rallying early on the news with big gains across major indexes. Notable equity advances included the mining industry led by Rio Tinto Group, automotive stocks including Porsche, Volkwagen, BMW and Daimler, and banks such as Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank. 
 
 In any case, the deal is by no means a solution to the longer-term goal (paywall) of reducing the deficit by $3-$4 trillion over 10 years. It’s not even really a solution to the fiscal cliff itself. It merely puts off some decisions. 
 
 Virtually nobody likes the current deal, which comes after the US technically went over the fiscal cliff. Liberals think it grants too many concessions to the wealthy (paywall) and leaves the government still hostage to talks over the debt ceiling in the coming weeks. Conservatives, still bristling at an aggressive speech from President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve, are angry at having to allow any tax hikes at all. (The House vote was 257-167, with Democrats overwhelmingly backing the bill but only one-third of Republicans in favor. Politico has a detailed reconstruction of the legislative sausage-making.) It’s in the context of this broad discontent that things got messy over the past two days. 
 
 Now that it’s speeding its way into law, what does it mean? 
 
 What has been agreed 
 
 The main outlines of the bill (see also a summary at our sister publication National Journal): 
 
 Income tax rates will rise on couples filing jointly with taxable household income over $450,000 (the Democrats had earlier wanted a $250,000 threshold), or approximately the top 1%. 
 
 Capital gains and dividend taxes rise somewhat, estate taxes increase slightly (Republicans had wanted no change), and various tax credits are extended 
 
 The payroll tax cut expires 
 
 Unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless last another year 
 
 All but the highest earners are exempted from the alternative minimum tax 
 
 A 27% cut in Medicare payments to doctors is waived 
 
 What’s been kicked down the road (and how far)
– If you think you'll be done hearing about the fiscal cliff or anything like it should the House pass the Senate's cliff deal, CNNMoney has bad news for you: "three more cliff-like deadlines" loom in the first quarter. That's because the bill doesn't touch the debt ceiling and kicks the sequester can down the road. What you'll need to brace yourself for: The debt ceiling: Another crisis isn't too far off—late February or early March. That's when the government, which hit the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling yesterday, will have finished eating through the roughly $200 billion of extra borrowing the Treasury Department has readied via "extraordinary measures." CNNMoney reminds us what happened last time around: S&P downgraded our credit rating, the stock market shuddered, and we wasted $1.3 billion in taxpayer dollars. Sequester: The bill that's now in the House's hands would kick the can down the road on $110 billion in automatic cuts to the budgets of the Pentagon and many domestic agencies. Next deadline? Two months. The budget: The government is supposed to enact a new budget when the fiscal year begins, on Oct. 1. But it's been years since that timeline has been met, with Congress instead relying on "continuing resolutions," described by CNNMoney as a "fancy way of saying 'Band-Aid solution.'" The expiration date of the current "Band-Aid" is March 27. And if we make it through those, we're still not done: Quartz writes that two more issues will pop up a year from now, per the new bill. The so-called "doctor cliff," the 27% cut in Medicare payments to doctors, has been delayed a year. Jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed were extended for a year, and Quartz expects "America will still have a large cohort of long-term unemployed when the current extension expires."