President Biden pitches this as a “once in a generation investment,” which is, of course, precisely the wrong way to go about managing infrastructure, a sector that is by its nature an ongoing, day-by-day, year-by-year concern. And that would matter if this package were really about infrastructure — but it isn’t. It’s a progressive wish-list, including everything from paying the tuition of every community-college student to paying Elizabeth Warren’s grandkids’ babysitter to corporate handouts for Democrat-aligned businesses.

The part of the spending spree that is plausibly about infrastructure, contained in a separate bill which already has been approved by the Senate, would add $256 billion to the debt, according to CBO data. President Biden’s plan at the moment seems to be to pretend that he’s never heard of that bill.

If the package were a good one and organized along fiscally sensible lines, President Biden would not be obliged to lie about it.

“My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars,” the president says. The word you are looking for here is “malarkey.”