none of this makes sense to me either, but it seems that this is empty posturing from the GOP as the "fiscally reponsible party" meaning that we can look forward to debt limit being a partisan issue every time there's a democrat incumbent. further, i don't know why dems are trying to negotiate with republicans since they already have a simple majority, enough to raise the debt ceiling, i assume that either the progressive caucus is also holding the infrastructure/conciliation bill hostage and can't reach simple majority, and thus they're trying to recruit GOP legislators to pass it without conceding to any of AOC's and Bernie's demands, or they are just fucking stupid and are also doing empty "bipartisan concensus" posturing, which would mean congress is deadlocked over literally nothing except emtpy gesturing, congress is a fiction, money is fake and reality has already crumbled.