Speaker Mike Johnson once again defied skeptics and found a majority in a high-stakes vote, with the House passing the president’s big policy bill on Thursday along party lines. He and John Thune, the Senate leader, ably made whatever deals and promises were necessary to get the bill through their chambers, and Republicans are celebrating it as a major victory. But the wobbly passage of the fiscal package says more about the frivolity of the game Congress now plays than it does about how well G.O.P. congressional leaders played it.

Few seem happy with the actual product. Republicans and Democrats alike have found plenty to criticize about the substance of the bill: the cost, the cuts, the gimmicks. Just as concerning, though, is the way it came together — and what that says about America’s once admired legislative body.

The process was marred by dynamics that have increasingly undermined Congress’s status as a dominant and deliberative institution: The bill lacked a clear and inspired purpose; it supplanted the expertise of congressional committees for the whims of holdouts and the president; and it relied on the make-or-break reconciliation mechanism that limits the ability to write sound policy.

Congress is no longer in the business of thoughtful legislating. Its role has been reduced to putting political points on the board for the president.

There has been a series of changes in how leadership and legislating in Washington work. Republican House members have long argued that too much power is centralized in the speaker’s office. They’ve chafed at speakers, including the two I worked for, who have presented them with a plan and told them it was either the right way to go or the best we could do.

Mr. Johnson has taken this criticism to heart, and his staying power as speaker can in part be attributed to the light touch he takes with his conference. This bill was not viewed as the Mike Johnson plan. Seemingly his only restraint was what could get 218 votes in the House.

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