Biden asking Democrats do so much with so little in Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rarely have the leaders of Congress been asked to do so much, with so little, as in navigating President Joe Biden’s big domestic vision into law.

Reaching for FDR-style accomplishments with slimmer-than-ever Democratic majorities has been politically messy at best, arduous at worst, and about to become even more daunting for the president and his party.

Fresh off passage of Biden's $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, Democrats are reviving his even bigger $1.75 trillion package for expanding health, child, elder care and climate change programs. Anxious to show voters a deliverable after dismal election results last week, the party's congressional leaders will try to muscle the massive bill past staunch Republican opposition in an ambitious, if fraught, undertaking beyond almost any other in modern American history.

“There’s just no good precedent for what Democrats are seeking to do, and I really wouldn’t be surprised to see them fail,” said Frances Lee, the associate chair of the Politics Department at Princeton University

“I can’t think of any parallel. I mean, I can think of some big bills, but nothing this big."

It’s not just that the package is giant -- even at half its original $3.5 trillion size -- Biden’s 2,135-page proposal is made up of so many far-reaching policies and programs that even lawmakers who support the framework have had trouble explaining it all.

And Democrats are trying to pass Biden's big bill on their own, relying on their fragile hold on Congress to push it past the opposition in ways Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and other modern presidents didn't have to contend with.

The Congress hasn't been this narrowly split in 20 years, with a Democratic margin of just a few seats in the House and the rare 50-50 split...