Joe Biden’s pitch during the 2020 campaign to unseat President Donald J Trump was simple: Trade in a stubborn, immovable leader for one with a proven record of taking half a loaf when a full one is out of reach. That approach appears to have brought Biden to the precipice of victory on a $2 trillion deal that could begin to define his legacy as a successful Oval Office legislative architect, one who is reshaping government spending and doing so by the narrowest of margins in a country with deep partisan and ideological chasms. But the bill is certain to be far smaller than what he originally proposed, and far less ambitious than he and many of his allies had hoped. 214