You know, I'm looking at the list of spending the GOP opposes on this bill and honestly, I only find 746 million that could not be considered stimulus spending or would just be tough to defend. That would be the Hollywood stuff, STD stuff, smoking and alcohol abuse stuff.

Everything else is very much stimulative and would create jobs.

I hope the blue dogs that make up the "Gang of X" realize who is in the White House and that their negotiated compromise with their Republican counterparts should end up on the left side of the political scale.

The "Gang of X" groups always seemed to give Bush almost exactly what he wanted.

The problem with finding "unnecessary" spending is that in a bill this size, ANYONE can find things they think are unnecessary. But because different people have different priorities, my list will be different from yours or anyone else's. There's no objective test for "unnecessary". This is what leads to the sausage-making aspect of these bills - everyone fights for what they consider the most important parts. And because it takes a majority vote to pass, lots of stuff gets added in to buy votes.

Ultimately, there's a tendency to "compromise" which means that you vote for my priorities and I vote for yours. The problem is that it's not really a compromise. It costs twice as much to fund both items as if we actually made a choice and only funded one. Oftentimes, "compromise" really means ducking the tough choices.

The reality is that the government's budget is just like my personal budget, our wants exceed our ability to pay for them. That means tough choices are called for and worthy projects don't get funded.

I tend to agree with Landrieu in principle. It may not formally make a difference whether you cut first and add later or vice versa, but the reality is that the way things usually work is that if you add first, the cuts never materialize.

We need that transportation spending, the amendment better come back up for a vote. More infrastructure spending, 30-40 billion dollars worth..........period.

Oh haven't you heard?

The left bloggos are dumping on Daschle and screaming for Dean

And the Republicans are loving every minute of this

"We got the order of the amendments wrong," she told me. "Even under the best of circumstances, I'm not sure -- given the politics of the other side -- that we could get more than 10 Republicans [to back the stimulus]."

Is this women mentally deficient. There are 58 Democratic Senators. Peel off the Blue Dogs and you still have a majority. Pass the frickin bill already, we're dying out here.

Mary Landrieu needs to take a long walk to work in the freezing cold.