Right now, our elected representatives in the United States Congress are putting the finishing touches on legislation that, if passed into law, would change the lives of every American.

We haven’t seen all the pieces yet, but as reported it is a $3.5 trillion cornucopia — including climate change directives, massive new cradle-to-grave entitlements, and more — all to be swallowed whole by the American public, like it or not. It’s a roll-the-dice, lollapalooza bill that Democrats see as their one shot at enacting their entire progressive agenda, with only Democrat votes.

They’re right about that. With razor-thin margins in the House and Senate, a president sinking daily, and the likelihood of a big shellacking in next year’s midterms, they won’t get another chance to go big.

It’s an extraordinarily ambitious gambit, and the Biden administration has made it its top priority. But it might want to think twice about what it wishes for. Transforming the country in ways that many Americans — and probably most — don’t want is a very bad idea.

So far, every step down this track has been messy:

• After high-profile collaboration with Republicans to develop a “bipartisan” $1.2T infrastructure bill, Democrats then dumped everything not agreed upon into this new monster, and now they insist on tying the two together — thus completely defeating the purpose of compromise. It’s like agreeing with your brother on a fair price for your used car, then charging him extra for the engine.

• Bernie Sanders thinks we should spend more than $3.5T. He needn’t worry. As written, the bill calls for phasing out most of the new entitlements in 3-5 years; that won’t happen because entitlements never actually end. The true 10-year cost will be over $5T — on top of the trillion-dollar infrastructure spend.

• There’s the little detail that we’re already on the verge of blowing through the statutory debt ceiling. Congress will find a way past that obstacle; it always does. But as we all know (or learned the hard way), letting our credit card limit dictate our spending habits invites financial disaster. We have a spending problem, not a debt ceiling problem.

• The Democrats’ decision to jam this monster through Congress via the reconciliation process is a mistake. It’s an obviously enticing approach because it would bypass the filibuster and make Senate approval possible with only Democrat votes. But reconciliation is a mechanism for streamlining congressional budget allocation, not for setting new policy — and the new bill is packed to the gills with new policy. Some Democrats are now demanding that the Senate parliamentarian (whose sole job is to make sure the U.S. Senate follows its own rules) bend those rules to allow the whole thing to skate through.

These are knotty and foreboding issues. But the more fundamental question, barely on the table, is this: Even if we could afford this behemoth (we can’t), is it something that most Americans want?

I doubt it. Democrats say that it’s popular, and to a degree that may be true — people on the receiving end of government largesse usually are happy to get it. But many, on both sides, know better.

We know that there’s no free lunch, and that every new benefit will be paid for by someone, at some time, in some way.

We know that increased taxes — particularly on business and investment — inevitably harm the economy, and that the burden ultimately lands on the shoulders of the middle class in the form of higher costs, fewer jobs, and lower wages.

We recognize that climate change is a real issue that we must confront, but we also recognize the necessity for a stable, reliable, and economical energy supply and we’ve already begun to see the consequences of the shortsighted rush to eliminate fossil fuels. We need to take this one on carefully.

And the last thing we want is bigger and more intrusive government. For example, free pre-K and college sounds great, but in light of recent education-related parental concerns such as mandatory masking of young children and curricula larded with Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ, do we really want government and teachers unions taking an even greater role in our kids’ upbringing?

The worst part of this episode is the misguided notion that the largest and most sweeping legislative package in American history should be enacted in a wholly partisan way. Its content — and by extension, the direction of the country — has been determined exclusively by Democrats in Congress, with zero engagement of congressional Republicans and no consideration of the interests of the half of America whom they represent.

That’s wrong. Where is Joe Biden, the unifier?