This was the plan all along: Democrats loaded up their Build Back Better spending spree with “free” giveaways so that when inevitable haggling and cutting happened, they’d look like the compassionate good guys who simply were forced to yield to typical Washington inaction.

Senate Democrats aim to pass their bill through the reconciliation process to avoid needing even a single vote from “heartless” Republicans. But they do need every Democrat to fall into line, which has put Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) at the center of the spending debate because of their reluctance to go along with Bernie Sanders and his “progressive” comrades.

Sanders recently penned an op-ed in a West Virginia newspaper to pressure Manchin, but Manchin won’t “vote for a reckless expansion of government programs,” he says. “No op-ed from a self-declared Independent socialist is going to change that.”

To complete the theater of it all, the stage managers brought in President Joe Biden, who yesterday brought his supposedly legendary negotiating skills to bear in an effort to secure a deal.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set the terms earlier this month, saying: “It’s not about a price tag or anything. It’s about values, not dollars.” Besides, she demanded to know, “What would you cut?”

As if “free” college tuition, “free” expanded government healthcare, “free” paid leave, “free” X, Y, and Z are manifestly good things for the federal government to benevolently provide instead of unconstitutional wealth-distribution schemes meant for the sole purpose of consolidating Democrat power in Washington.

Well, here come the “cuts.” Biden told congressional Democrats that the price tag has changed again. Democrats originally wanted us to believe their spending bonanza (not including the $1 trillion “infrastructure” bill) would cost $3.5 trillion. With an honest accounting instead of shifting revenue and outlays to hide the real cost, the actual number was closer to $5 trillion, and even that was likely underestimating. Then Biden came along and insisted the price tag was really “zero dollars” because it’s all “paid for.” That’s a lie, and a laughable one at that.

Now, Biden says Democrats might be able to pass a bill more in the $1.75 to $1.9 trillion range. Democrats already spent $1.9 trillion in March on Biden’s so-called “American Rescue Plan.”

Most of the things Sanders and company want will still be there, just a little less. “The path put forward by the White House could extend new, expanded child tax credit payments recently adopted by Congress, but perhaps for only one additional year,” reports The Washington Post. “It would offer new money to make housing more affordable, yet far less than Democrats once envisioned. And it would provide paid leave, except only four weeks of benefits, rather than the 12 weeks some had once proposed.”

NBC News led with the dire headline: “Democrats abandon free community college as White House warns social safety net bill will shrink below $2T.”

The idea conveyed by NBC is that $2 trillion is still rather chintzy. The problem with this framing is that the door is still flung open wide for massive expansion of government. As Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, put it, “All our priorities are there in some way, shape or form.” Democrats hope to fundamentally transform the United States sometime later this week, all while touting the statesmanship of Joe Biden to help them reach a deliberative compromise. The Leftmedia will happily parrot that fairytale, but don’t believe it.

“Every day,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared, “American families are feeling real pain because of the reckless and inflationary policies that Democrats have already rammed through.” And yet here they are about to force through even more of it.