WSJ Editorial Board: Why the $1.9 trillion COVID spending bill is only a taste of what's coming next

Democrats on Wednesday passed their $1.9 trillion spending and welfare bill that would have been unimaginable even in the Obama years.

One lesson from the Covid non-fight is that there are no Democratic moderates in Congress. The party base has moved so sharply left that even swing-state members are more liberal than many liberals in the Clinton years. Democrats lost not a single vote in the Senate and only one in the House. The fear of primary challenges from the left, which took out House war horses in 2018 and 2020, has concentrated incumbent minds. A second lesson is that President Biden is no moderating political force. Democrats in the House and Senate are setting the agenda, and Mr. Biden is along for the ride. He’s the ideal political front-man for this agenda with his talk of "unity" and anti-Trump persona, but he isn’t shaping legislation. He is signing on to whatever chief of staff Ron Klain tells him he needs to support.