Passing one $4.1 trillion bill through the Senate, and coming up with all the ways to pay for it, is going to be an extremely tall order. And passing major legislation next year, with the midterms approaching, is going to be especially difficult. What’s more, the fact that the parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough put the kibosh on Schumer’s reconciliation gambit (after earlier this year blocking Democrats from passing a minimum-wage increase through this process), suggests that she is going to make it hard for Democrats to shoehorn all of their priorities into a massive reconciliation package. It’s true that in theory, Democrats could decide to nuke the filibuster, or fire the parliamentarian and instate a new one who will allow them to do whatever they want. The problem is that either plan would require the support of Senators Manchin and Sinema, who so far have resisted such ideas. Adding further to Biden’s problems is that this debate is happening within the context of rising fears of inflation and with the White House projecting that debt as a share of the economy will rise to the highest level in American history this year, surpassing the World War II record.