“I am not proud of what you’re seeing here today,” said Representative Tim Walz, Democrat of Minnesota. “The disrespect shown to this hallowed ground by hatching this abomination in the middle of the night and forcing it here because of this extremist element is the reason that the American people think higher of North Korea than they do of this body.”

The chaos reflects the reality that Congress has largely been reduced from a lawmaking entity to a political operation, in which positions are taken and fermented largely in the name of maintaining party unity rather than attracting votes from the other side. In the House, under the rule of Republicans, the minority is largely powerless to do anything but protest. Senate Republicans at least have the power to filibuster, which helps explain why they are so adamantly opposed to the Democrats’ gambit.

Some Senate Republicans, after years of asking the majority to pass a budget, now refuse to allow the House and Senate to reconcile their two versions, less because of policy disagreements and more, it would appear, to appeal to a base that simply abhors deal-making. For their part, Democrats had been enjoying a stalemate over the issue of student loans because of its potential for campaign advertising copy next year.

Bills come together now more often because of a breakdown in party unity, as was the case this week with the student loan bill, when Democrats showed signs of yielding because of disagreements within their own party over how to proceed. Likewise, Republicans occasionally will adopt Senate solutions only when their party is divided over their own bills, as was the case this year when they were forced to swallow a fiscal deal that included tax increases on high earners.

The exception to the misery remains, at least largely, in the Appropriations Committees, owing perhaps to its now-waning tradition of benevolence as lawmakers take care of one another’s needs. Even as bills passed through the Senate committee on Thursday largely along party lines, laughter filled the hearing room as members joked with the amiable chairwoman of the committee, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland.