Democrats want to vote this week on a pair of epic tax and spending bills, yet they’re still playing hide-the-ball on their multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill. It’s clearer than ever that the Democrats and Republicans who want to vote for the $1 trillion Senate infrastructure bill are being taken for a ride.

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Senator Joe Manchin speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 1.

Photo: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg News

Democrats want to vote this week on a pair of epic tax and spending bills, yet they’re still playing hide-the-ball on their multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill. It’s clearer than ever that the Democrats and Republicans who want to vote for the $1 trillion Senate infrastructure bill are being taken for a ride.

House progressives blocked a vote on the infrastructure bill for a second time last week, and again they did it with President Biden’s blessing. Multiple news reports say the White House gave Rep. Pramila Jayapal, head of the Progressive Caucus, the go-ahead to overrule Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desire to vote on infrastructure before Mr. Biden left for Europe. Mrs. Pelosi had to pull the bill for a second humiliating time.

Now the Congressional left is working to rewrite the "framework" accord that Mr. Biden announced last week to much triumphalism. At last, a victory for Joe! But the left says it ain’t over until Bernie Sanders sings, or at least grumbles, his assent and they’re demanding that their priorities be reinstated.

Mr. Sanders wants Medicare dental benefits restored, though he’s already won an expensive expansion to cover hearing aids. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand wants a new national family leave entitlement, though the White House dropped it because Sen. Joe Manchin is opposed. Elizabeth Warren and Mrs. Pelosi want drug price controls reinstated, despite opposition from many swing-district House Democrats and some Senators.

Finance Chairman Ron Wyden says his wealth tax on billionaires still isn’t dead, though the corpse sure looks pale. And, by the way, the framework says nothing about restoring the state-and-local tax deduction, which is a priority of Democrats from high-tax states. This could be very expensive, and presumably Mrs. Pelosi plans to stuff this into the bill at the last minute to get the bill passed.

In other words, the vaunted “framework” was like a house with only the two-by-four frame in place. The rest will be filled in hours before the vote, so they can jam it through and we can find out later what’s in it.

Democrats aren’t even waiting for the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Taxation Committee to “score” their bill. They simply want to assert that it costs $1.75 trillion when everyone knows that the real cost will be at least twice that given the program phaseouts, phase-ins, and buck-passing to the states. This is fly-by-night legislating that the press corps would be denouncing if Republicans did it.

On Monday Sen. Manchin brought some much-needed reality to this circus by calling out the progressive tricks. “The political games have to stop,” he said of the progressive hostage strategy on the infrastructure bill. “It is time to vote on the BIF [infrastructure] bill—up or down—and then go home and explain to your constituents the decision you made.” He said he won’t vote for a reconciliation bill until there’s a vote on infrastructure.

The West Virginia Democrat also dared to say the reconciliation bill is riding naked down the street. “As more of the real details outlined in the basic framework are released, what I see are shell games, budget gimmicks, that makes the real cost of the so-called 1.75 trillion dollar bill estimated to be almost twice that amount” if the programs are made permanent and not phased out, he said.

He added that “this is a recipe for economic crisis. None of us should ever misrepresent to the American people what the real cost of legislation is.” And he suggested he’s prepared to vote against the bill if he thinks it will hurt the country by adding to the debt burden or inflationary pressures.

Thank you, Senator. Someone has to stand up to the left’s ransom demands, and President Biden has shown he won’t.

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All of this should inform House Republicans who want to vote for the infrastructure bill if Speaker Pelosi ever brings it to the floor. Mr. Biden told Senators that the two bills were separate, but twice he’s made clear they’re linked. The 19 GOP Senators who voted for the infrastructure bill were double-crossed.

House Republicans ought to make Democrats pass the infrastructure bill with their own votes. If the progressives want to kill it, that’s their choice. But they shouldn’t be able to use GOP votes to ease their way to passing the largest expansion of government in decades.

Just one year after the “defund the police” movement began in Minneapolis, a ballot to amend the city charter to “remove the Police Department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety." Image: Reuters/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition