In a session with reporters yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer dug up an old quote from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and used it to prove that the appropriations omnibus package was a bipartisan, bicameral effort. In the quote from early January, McConnell had been arguing against moving forward with an economic stimulus plan and stated that the omnibus should be passed first.

Senate Republicans then held a press conference yesterday afternoon during which McConnell brought up his quote from January and explained that he in fact thinks the package is $20 billion larger than it should be.

"Back in January, I suggested to the Democratic leadership that we take up the omnibus appropriation bill first," McConnell said. "And I did that because I wanted to make sure that we were not engaged in duplicate spending when we finally went to the stimulus. Regretfully, we decided to do it in reverse order. We passed the stimulus bill first, and now we're going to go asking taxpayers to choke down an omnibus bill that's $20 billion above what it should be based on the budget."

McConnell continued: "It strikes us that we're on a spending spree of gargantuan proportions here and a good time to stop it would be getting this omnibus appropriation bill slipped down to a size that was consistent with the current budget."