Again, it all depends on how you define 'success'

I have discussed the many ways journalists (not to mention the general public) become confused by math, but the recent observation that the Build Back Better legislation (whatever that may look like) might manage to both "lose" and "win" is appealing.

The original idea was to go for a ten-year plan, though that always struck me as weird and unnecessary. First, ten years is a long time politically, but also technologically, socially, etc. Ten years ago, gay marriage was illegal. Ten years ago, Donald Trump was a late night joke (well, some things never change). Ten years ago, most older Americans were still figuring out how to log in to Facebook.

The ten-year strategy was never good messaging, as most people couldn't discriminate between $3 trillion over ten years and just a big lump sum of $3 trillion. 

The new strategy takes into account the extreme popularity of almost everything in the proposed legislation when each idea is evaluated separately. But, like masks, the tribes have dug in their heels.

But once the government creates a popular program, history shows that Congress has a tough time dropping it. 

I have no idea exactly how much President Biden and his advisers inflated that original $3 trillion, fully expecting to need to compromise and reduce the final total. Same with ten years. 

My prediction is that the Democrats are about to settle for $1.5 trillion or so, with a shorter time horizon, prompting pundits to say they are losers (and let's just assume Trump will use that term). But if enough people feel they come out "winners" from new programs, that winning may translate to more election wins for Dems.

Once again, doing the right thing doesn't make us chumps. 

Even the idea of taxing the wealth of the top thousand Americans to partially pay for the new spending looks like a winner. Democrats can argue that their proposal simply asks Americans to pay all they OWE in tax. Republicans are arguing that it's fine for SOME people to beat the system.

For all of us without endless wealth, most of us paying what we owe on our salaries, asking the rich to pay a bit larger tax bill seems like a no-brainer.

As in many situations: don't overthink it.