Sen. Pryor: The Magic Number is $789 Billion

I had a chance to speak with Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Arkansas, this morning in a telephone conference call with other media folk, and Pryor said that he had some breaking news on the Stimulus & Recovery Package or the Spend & Swindle Package, whichever way you're taking it now.

Pryor says that the magic number the Senate and House hope to agree upon in an upcoming special committee prior to its re-vote in the House is $789 billion.

Pryor also said that in the Senate, Democrats reached across the aisle and made bipartisan amendments to slim what he said was at one time in the $900 billion range on the stimulus, and that he supported the bill following the addition of said amendment.

"We decided to make some cuts that ultimately focused more on job creation and recovery," said Pryor (which is kind of funny, because I thought that's what the entirety of the bill was supposed to be focused on — woe to me and my boundless ineptitude).

The special joint committee between the House and the Senate is expected, so says Pryor, to try to work out the disparity between the House and the Senate bills, which is in fact the same bill, down to $789 billion.

I'm reading around and many are saying that the bill is supposed to be much higher, with the Senate bill being around $838 and the House version around $820, and you'd think it'd be in that ball park, but Pryor said otherwise, straight from the horse's mouth.

He said that this is an ear-mark free bill and isn't like the New Deal, full of government handouts. Rather, it will be mostly handled by the private sector. Whether or not he's talking about the same private sector that tanked on Obama's ole buddy Geithner yesterday wasn't discussed in the phone call. Let's keep em crossed that there's another one he was talking about.

Pryor also said that he was "optimistic" about the bill passing in the House, and said that Democrats were going to try harder than ever to get at least a little more than zero Republican votes on the bill in the House. The Senate stimulus got three whole unnecessary Republican nods from Senatoritas Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe also of Maine and Senator Arlen "Not Related to the Murderer Phil" Spector of Pennsylvania, likely ruining his shot at renomination in his own primary but receiving a nice pat on the back from across the aisle.

The special joint committee includes Senators Cochran, R-MS, Grassley, R-IA, Reid, D-NV, Baucus, D-MT, and Inoyue, D-HI, while the House is bringing Obey, D-WI, Rangel, D-NY, and Waxman, D-CA. If Democrats are really pumped up about bipartisanship and getting this thing passed amicably in the House, they might've started by including some on this joint whittling discussion, don't you think?

Locally, Arkansas is sitting pretty if the stimulus bill passes, Pryor said.

The Senator said that the Natural State is slated to receive $360 million for "shovel ready" projects. Pryor said that "shovel ready" didn't mean that a shovel was necessarily involved and that I was just being silly, but rather it meant that it's a project due to start in the next 180 days at most, with some beginning even 60 and 90 days from now.

"Arkansas currently has $1.1 billion scheduled in projects in the next 180 days," Pryor said. "People may complain 'We're only getting $360 million,' but there's a third of those projects taken care of instantly."

Obama is wanting to sign this deal by the end of the week, and his proposal knew very little bounds. Despite how these Republicans might struggle or how these Democrats might genuinely want and amicable resolution, the Democrats have more firepower and are lead by a guy who wants nothing more than to get this thing rocking and rolling on all cylinders ASAP. Like it or not, it's coming.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20. I look forward to seeing if this will be labeled as noble expedience or stubborn hastiness.

UPDATE: Just remember you heard it here first.