To everyone’s chagrin, negotiations drag on among Democrats on the Build Back Better Act, Joe Biden’s signature social spending bill. While we don’t yet know what the final bill will contain, the media has reported, blow-by-blow, as one progressive proposal after another has been cut, in a drawn out and seemingly futile effort to appease conservative Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

It didn’t have to be this way.

The bill started as a $6 trillion social spending proposal from Bernie Sanders, what he called “the most consequential piece of legislation for working families since the 1930s.” Days later, Democrats announced they would spend no more than $3.5 trillion, but there was still a lot for progressives and working-class people to like: tuition-free community college; expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision care; lowering Medicare eligibility to age sixty; paid family leave for new parents; and subsidies for childcare.