It's not even a matter of "I'll throw you a bone," it's deliberately fucking up everything as much as legally possible, all the time. I mean, I understand that there's competing views of how to run a country, but there's a difference between "I'm going to vote no" and "I'm not going to let this pass because, although I can't veto it, I can prevent it from ever getting voted on." Voting "no" exercises your views in a political field, your 1 view amongst all the others around you. Preventing the vote breaks the system by enabling your view to count for more than anyone else's. I understand this is what those in power want, but it prevents anything from getting done.

One of the things the article touched on that I didn't was the nature of how democratic governments function. Parliamentary systems provide governing parties with much more power than the opposition, so this kind of dickheadedness and bullshittery still works in that system - it's a balance of sorts. Congress functions much differently. It really does require the majority of the politicians there to cooperate, at least on a most basic level, otherwise the whole system gets so bogged down that nothing can be accomplished.

You're totally right about the bills thing, too.