It looks like they have not passed the spending bill itself, rather they have just reached some consensus on how to order and vote on a bunch of amendments, man

It looks like they have not passed the spending bill itself, rather they have just reached some consensus on how to order and vote on a bunch of amendments, many of which the piece itself notes are likely to fail. Why the heck does there need to be backdoor negotiations regarding which amendments will be heard by the larger body?. Which amendments get heard is a procedural question, right? so why do the objections / hold up seem to be based on policy? To be clear, Im not really interested in the answer to that question. I'm sure there is a "good" reason for it, and I understand in the abstract why legislative procedure is often used as a tool for negotiations and political messaging. But if I can get on my soap box and vent a bit, it never ceases to amaze me how much congress has hobbled itself by over-complicating the lawmaking process. Over-complicated lawmaking processes inevitably leads to further erosion of congressional power by delegating authority to some executive branch department, which are (comparably) far more effective and responsive. Like, I'm not saying they should just swap to Roberts Rules of order, but for petes sake. Congress gets to set its own rules about how it operates, you only need a majority vote to change the process, IIRC. The house I can somewhat forgive, since they only have a year or so of real time in office before they need to start campaigning again. But senators get 4-5 good years, whats their excuse? You would think that enough senators would be interested in actually wielding the power of their office to pass laws (or to pass laws that repeal laws) that they would get off their collective butts to make their institution actually semi-effective.