On Sunday, many pundits asserted that the Democrats’ "Build Back Better” mega-bill was completely dead; by Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden was apparently once again talking with Sen. Joe Manchin, and the bill is ... well, it may not be thriving, but it’s not so dead after all.

Perhaps Manchin needed the blowup to differentiate himself from other Democrats; perhaps the White House needed it to take Manchin’s real antipathy toward Biden’s expanded child tax credit seriously. It’s also possible — as some liberals suspect — that Manchin simply likes keeping the negotiations going but has no intention of ever making a deal. If that’s the case, the bill will eventually die. But no matter how painful it would be to many Democrats, omitting the child tax credit would surely still leave them with a bill they should rush to accept.

And who knows? Sen. Mitt Romney resurfaced his own child tax credit plan on Monday and declared himself open for negotiations. It seems unlikely that Democrats could find the needed votes with Romney (and perhaps a few other Republicans), but if that turns out to be the only game in town and it can be advanced in addition to the climate, health care and other provisions that would remain in a slightly-less-mega-bill, Democrats will only have to beat the status quo to find something they can live with.