The buried boon to the wealthy in the Democrats’ tax plan

TRY TO STUFF a party’s entire agenda into one giant piece of legislation, and a battle royal will ensue. Such is the case with the Democrats’ aim to cram policy on poverty relief, child care, climate change, health care, higher education, pre-school, tax reform and more into the Build Back Better (BBB) Act, which passed the House of Representatives on November 19th.

As its price tag has been slashed to $1.7trn over a decade, half as much as first pitched, the hunger—or squid—games between progressives and moderates have turned fiercer. (Against united Republican opposition and with no votes to spare in the Senate, any Democratic defection would scupper the bill.) This has mostly been to the benefit of the moderates, as senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have wielded their veto threats to weaken or kill some mooted carbon-emissions limits, a paid-family-leave programme and tax rises for rich Americans and firms. But a lesser-known faction, the SALT Caucus, may have made out best of all.