Once again, though, things look different now than they did in the spring. The child benefit is only one area where Manchin has objections; he’s also resolutely opposed to the clean energy proposals and is doubtful about both paid family leave and provisions to provide care for the elderly and disabled. Moreover, Sinema has different objections than Manchin, focusing her opposition on the tax hikes and proposals to control drug prices — precisely the sorts of things that Romney would be likely to object to. In that context, it’s strange to limit your negotiating partners from the start and give all the leverage — and all the exposure — to two vulnerable members of your caucus. Even if Romney — or Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who is largely exempt from party discipline — couldn’t ultimately be brought on board, having additional partners for negotiation might have helped by enabling Manchin and Sinema to calibrate their stances against their moderate Republican colleagues and thereby get to yes.

More important than the Monday morning quarterbacking, though, is the fact that the change in circumstances makes the substance of Romney’s proposal more timely. If we’re now in a macroeconomic climate where additional stimulus will be immunized by the Fed with asset sales and rate hikes, then redistribution is no longer a free lunch. It now has a cost, one that has to be offset with measures that improve efficiency and/or that expand supply. There are investments in both the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill that do the latter — but they don’t work quickly. In the meantime, it makes sense to think not only about the total price tag of the reconciliation bill, but about how to make it simpler and more efficient, which is precisely what Romney proposed.