The Build Back Better bar is lowering rapidly

A great exercise in lowering the bar.

At least it's better than a hellscape in an imaginary alternative universe!

Next day:

At least it's better than eating arsenic and nails!

Whatever constructive winds up being in the "reconciliation" bill, what most voters are seeing is:

• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own program enacted.
• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own program enacted.
• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress and can't get their own program enacted.

Even political junkies who have been trying to keep up with the convoluted negotiations hardly know what to think. So here, I'm going to do my own "at-least": At least during the summer and early fall, the non-political-junkie public has seen Biden and the Democrats fight more than usual for their own side.

There are three relatively recent pieces on what's still in, although it's changing right now almost by the hour. It's not over until it's over.

• Harold Meyerson, World’s Biggest Half-Full, Half-Empty Glass The American Prospect 10/28/2021: "For me, the most absurd relegation to that [cutting-room] floor has been killing the proposal to give Medicare the ability to bring down drug prices."
• David Dayen, What’s in the Build Back Better Framework The American Prospect 10/28/2021: "There is $555 billion, around 30 percent of this bill, earmarked for climate investments, though that stretches the definition."
• Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes, Your guide to the huge Dem deal: 14 new policies and what could stop them Politico 10/28/2021