The Democrats fail to deliver. A trillion and a half dollars in social and climate change cut from the bill.

Drug prices, Medicare expansion and climate are all on the chopping block.

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The final version of the Democrats’ social spending bill may be down by $1.5 trillion dollars.

I would like to put the blame for this on the Republicans.

But the fight over the social spending bill that President Biden presented to the Congress is totally among the Democrats. The failure to deliver on the promises and expectations is owned totally by them.

Not all of them. The Progressives, led by Bernie Sanders, are still fighting for what was promised. But the right-wing of the Democratic Party is putting a dagger through the heart of what the people need.

And the so-called moderates are calling for compromise.

I prefer a game of hardball since there may not be another chance anytime soon.

I have been writing about negotiating drug prices, for example.

The proposition is this: Allow the government to negotiate the cost of drugs for programs like Medicare. We spend more on drugs than any other country in the industrialized world.

As of today, the result of Democrats wheeling and dealing among themselves will likely mean that government negotiating over the cost of drugs will be severely confined.

Only medications that have outlived their patent protections, when competitors would be allowed to come in with generic versions, would be included.

The idea of negotiating the cost of drugs with expired patents is solely for the purpose of protecting drug company profits.

It’s a nothing burger.

Other cuts to the bill the Democrats now seem likely to make:

A reduction to the wildly popular child tax credit.

The proposal for free community college tuition.

No expansion of Medicare. No coverage for dental, hearing or vision.

This is particularly shitty.

Who the hell designs a health program for the elderly that doesn’t cover dental, hearing and vision? That’s what they did decades ago and they still refuse to fix it.

If the paid parental leave plan is included at all, it is sure to be a shorter, narrower program than initially envisioned.

On Sunday, Pelosi was asked on CNN’s State of the Union if a compromised four weeks of paid leave would be in the final package. The original promise was twelve weeks. “That’s our hope," the speaker said. "That’s what we’re fighting for.”

Who are they fighting? Democrats.

Progressive Democrats are fighting right wing Democrats like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin on climate change.

Manchin’s opposition has all but killed a clean electricity program progressive Democrats said they wanted to penalize utilities that don’t increase their use of renewables.

And the list goes on.

A trillion and a half dollars long.

The question is, if not now, when?

There is a growing likelihood that the Democrats may lose control of Congress in 2022.

Their failure to deliver is costing votes.

Mainstream Democrats are willing to compromise by caving to the right wing Democrats like Manchin and Arizona’s Krysten Sinema and justify it with the hope they will have a second go at it later.

That seems less and less likely if they lose the House.

Play hardball and make the obstructionist Democrats an offer they can’t refuse.

Otherwise, for the poor and the elderly, the cost of Democratic Party failure to deliver is a major defeat.