On its face, Congress’s ongoing reconciliation fight is a complex, inscrutable, and labyrinthine process consisting of many constantly shifting parts. At the level of granular detail, this is indeed the case and, alongside months of piss-poor media coverage, it’s a major reason why the American public still understands very little about what’s actually at stake. But, behind the facade of intricate and fluid horse trading, the basic dynamic remains fixed and unchanged — as ossified as it was the day debate over the package began.

From its very outset, the reconciliation battle has been framed as a negotiation pitting ideological progressives against pragmatic moderates, with the former pursuing a suite of ambitious spending proposals and the latter a smaller overall price tag. As per the latest developments, the figure most frequently at the center of narrative — West Virginia senator Joe Manchin — appears to have coaxed the Biden White House into radically pairing down what was already a compromise position into something still more austere and less ambitious.

Though not yet finalized, the parameters of a prospective deal now look poised to cut the standing $3.5 trillion of planned expenditures over the next ten years to something totaling less than $2 trillion — with free community college, key climate measures, subsidies for programs to help the disabled and elderly, and proposed enhancements to the child tax credit apparently on the chopping block. At time of writing, there is also new speculation that Manchin is threatening to exit the Democratic caucus unless the lacerating cuts are made, and that, even if they are, he may be planning to leave by November 2022 regardless. (Manchin denies this report).