By Jim McCraw

Like every other concerned citizen, I’d like to see a Build Back Better reconciliation bill that will stimulate the economy, get control of inflation, fix our sagging, rotting infrastructure and spend some money on generally cleaning up the joint and its atmosphere, without breaking the bank.

Like every other concerned citizen, it worries me that two people, elected to do the will of the people, and who are members of the party in power in the Senate -- not the loyal opposition -- can use the elements of the bill to get on television and, by extension, social media, in order to gather enough money to fund their re-election.  

It also worries me that even a vastly reduced compromise bill has to run to hundreds and hundreds of pages, much of which will eventually involve pork, the food that local politics runs on.

There are also concerns about the current level of ongoing financial commitment involving the aforesaid cleaning up the joint.  I am among those concerned.  Some of us believe that strictly enforcing every one of the federal environmental laws as aggressively as criminal law is better than a $500- to $555-billion chunk of the BBB bill, with severe financial and criminal penalties. Without breaking the bank. 

So here we are, within striking distance of a bill that started out at an otherworldly $3.5 trillion and will probably come in at $1.9 trillion, a monument to the art of negotiation. This is, as always, how it works in America. You listen to me, I listen to you, and then we do what we want.