Last-minute scrambling in the U.S. Senate produced a deal that averted the worst consequences of hitting the fiscal cliff. But the agreement reached late Monday night fell far short of the grand bargain including spending reductions and tax increases necessary to put the federal government on a sustainable fiscal path.

The media hoopla over the consequences of going over the fiscal cliff overstated the consequences that would be triggered on Jan. 1 without a deal. Most analysts said that the cliff was more of a slope, and as long as a comprehensive deal was completed by mid-January, no serious harm would be done to the economy.

But since perception is reality and the public had been told that failure to do a deal by midnight on Dec. 31 would be catastrophic, negotiations between the Senate and the White House produced a small-scale agreement.

The final deal produced by the Senate was, at best, a partial fix. One observer described it as putting Band-Aids on gunshot wounds. The Senate bill allowed taxes on the wealthiest Americans to rise a few percentage points to the levels during the Clinton administration. At the same time, it froze taxes for 99 percent of Americans, avoiding the tax hit that would have come if the Bush-era tax cuts had been allowed to expire on Dec. 31.

But the drama and political gamesmanship of the final week of December will return quickly because the necessary spending reductions were not addressed in the Senate agreement. The New York Times said “the patchwork deal would push a series of fights into the next Congress, most of them very likely to be marked by the same 11th-hour rancorous dynamics that have been the signature of every other fiscal deal.”

The 112th Congress, characterized by bitter partisan divisions and lack of accomplishment, finished its term in character. It accomplished very little, apart from avoiding an artificial crisis of its own making — the fiscal cliff — created, in part, after the 2011 failure to reach a deal on raising the national debt limit.

There is some benefit to settling the tax rates issue, but the failure of Congress to pass a larger deal, often described as a grand bargain, leaves most tough issues on the table.

Among the things left undone are comprehensive tax reform to simplify the loophole-ridden tax code while also increasing the efficiency and fairness of the tax system.

Entitlement reform, the biggest challenge of all, has also been left for another day.

Nearly all responsible plans to put the federal government on a sustainable fiscal path call for slowing the growth of spending in Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. Dealing with these means some unpopular and controversial options will have to be considered, such as increasing the eligibility age, means-testing and reduced benefits.

Most Americans pay far less into Medicare and Social Security than they will receive in benefits, which is clearly unsustainable. Times columnist David Brooks noted that the average Medicare couple pays $109,000 into the program and gets $343,000 in benefits out.

Brooks also notes that the increased tax rate for the wealthy will raise about $600 billion over 10 years — while about $8 trillion in new debt is expected to be added during the same time period, based on current spending.

This Band-Aid approach is all that Congress and Obama can manage, suggesting a leadership failure at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. What’s needed is a grand bargain featuring a package of tax increases and spending reductions, with the emphasis on slowing entitlement spending.

The Senate’s last-minute deal avoided the worst of the fiscal cliff. But it failed miserably by not producing the balanced solution to the serious financial crisis facing a country that borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends. The Senate deal, approved 89-8, accomplished only the bare minimum of what needed to be done.