Build back later

Build Back Better, the centerpiece of President Biden’s ambitious domestic legislative agenda, has become Build Back Later…maybe.

What was to have been the administration’s history-making signature accomplishment — a $1.75 trillion expansion of existing social welfare programs and the creation of new entitlements — now lies in ruins and the odds of its resurrection are beyond bleak.

What was to have arrested the president’s downward spiral in public support resulted instead in a further erosion of confidence in the administration’s competence. (The Real Clear Politics polling average, for instance, places Biden’s approval at 42 percent and disapproval at 53 percent.)