“We are not giving up on the BBB, period,” Chuck Schumer told his Senate caucus in a meeting last night, Manu Raju reports. Schumer insisted that work will continue on Joe Biden’s massive social-engineering proposal “until we pass a bill.” But what version of the Build Back Better could possibly muster 50 votes?

Punchbowl wonders a bit about that too this morning:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated that there will be a vote on a revised version of the BBB early next year. “I know we are all frustrated at this outcome. However, we are not giving up on BBB. Period. We won’t stop working on it until we pass a bill,” Schumer said, according to a Democratic source.

Schumer added that Democrats will take up voting rights legislation in January. If Republicans block it, then the Senate “will consider and vote on rules reform.” Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) won’t agree to get rid of the 60-vote threshold to end a filibuster, but Democrats are hoping they can convince the pair to back some changes to the procedure.

Manchin dialed into the meeting and addressed his fellow Democrats, according to several sources. Manchin indicated he was comfortable with Schumer’s plan, but his position hasn’t changed on BBB. Manchin noted that he’d publicly raised his concerns about inflation for months. Manchin also said he can’t support any new or expanded programs that add to the federal debt. Of course, the vote on the motion to proceed to the BBB will likely fail because Manchin is opposed to the package in its current form.

Schumer has to have heaved a sigh of relief that Manchin’s still engaging with Senate Democrats, at least. That still doesn’t solve Schumer’s problem, as Manchin’s contribution makes clear. Manchin wants a bill under $2 trillion in real ten-year cost that gets fully funded with revenue increases, whether through tax hikes or other mechanisms. That would force progressives to start paring programs out of the BBB — actually, most of their hobby-horse agenda items.

Are they willing to do that? Not even in the face of a total loss, according to the Washington Post:

Liberals are furious.

Their hopes of enacting an expansive domestic policy bill focused on health care, education and climate change have been dashed. They blame Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), arguing he failed to keep his word to negotiate in good faith with the White House before announcing his opposition to the package on “Fox News Sunday.”

And they are in no mood, at the moment, to think about scaling back their policy ambitions in hopes of getting some part of what they want into law following Manchin’s proclamation that he “can’t get there” on President Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposal.

“Why do we have to acquiesce to what members of another party think we should be doing, what so called moderates think we should be doing, what so called independents think we should be doing? All of that represents a status quo,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). “Our status quo is rooted in racism, sexism and classism, and us not passing Build Back Better or scaling it back dramatically, even more so than has already been done, is going to disproportionately harm people of color, women, the poor, children and seniors.”

Rather than accept the mathematical reality of a 50/50 Senate with moderates in their caucus, progressives still want to impose their fringe vision through rhetorical bullying. This is nothing new; House Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal made it clear over two months ago that none of the programs will come out of their bill. Remember this declaration against basic budgeting?

Rep. Jayapal on reconciliation package: "We can't pit child care against pre-K. We can't pit pre-K against climate change. We can't pit housing against immigration. So all of these priorities need to be in there, and I think we're kind of coalescing around that." pic.twitter.com/jrqNkDyk2o

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 7, 2021

Progressives didn’t just “coalesce” around opposition to prioritization — they practically engraved it into stone tablets and handed it down from Mt. Bernie. Instead of responsibly budgeting, they simply put in a bunch of dishonest sunset mechanisms to hide the true cost of the BBB and hoped Manchin would play along. And perhaps he might have if inflation hadn’t shot upwards, and if progressives hadn’t accused Manchin of being a racist this entire autumn.

If progressives won’t back down and Manchin won’t back down, that leaves Schumer with very few options.  He can press a vote on the current Senate version of BBB, watch it fail, and declare it a dead issue for this session of Congress, but progressives will revolt. Schumer can gang up on Manchin to increase the political pressure on him to fold, but (a) that only helps Manchin’s standing in deep-red West Virginia, and (b) Manchin could retaliate by flipping to the GOP and taking control of the Senate with him. That would also put an end to reconciliation, as well as any hope of brute-forcing judicial nominees through confirmation … which might become a very big deal in July if Stephen Breyer decides to retire from the Supreme Court.

The only other option will be to pass something, anything titled Build Back Better and declare victory. The smartest choice for that strategy would be to fund Joe Biden’s child-tax credit for 10 years at a cost of $1.4 trillion, fund smaller progressive priorities with the remaining $350 billion over ten years, and force progressives to vote it down. They still might, but then that would become their problem rather than Schumer’s or Biden’s — and they would be stuck explaining why Biden’s CTC checks had stopped coming.

If it passes, then Biden and Schumer can explain that BBB really applied to the bipartisan infrastructure bill plus the CTC. No one will buy that explanation, of course, especially not progressives. But it’s the most mild defeat left as an option for them at this point.