House Republicans Want Senate Colleagues To Block Stimulus

House Republicans are pushing their Senate colleagues to stand unanimously against President Obama's stimulus package, as they themselves did in the lower chamber last week.

"We are urging our Senate colleagues to join every House Republican in opposing this bill," Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), the third-ranking Republican in the House, said Tuesday.

Pence said that House Republicans don't merely object to specific provisions of the stimulus, but rather are opposed to the entire thing.

"There's nothing modest about the differences House Republicans have with House Democrats over this bill," he said, a reference to President Obama's description of the differences between the parties. "House Republicans don't believe you can borrow and spend your way out."

Pence said that House Republicans do believe that now is the time for a stimulus bill, but the GOP would prefer it to focus on tax cuts. Some amount of infrastructure spending, said Pence, could also be considered stimulative.

The differences between Pence and Obama are ideological and not personal, Pence said, He called the president "quite genuine and refreshingly candid," but added that Obama is "a lot more liberal than I'll ever live to be."

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said that McConnell currently opposes the stimulus package but hopes to beneficially amend it. "The difference is, in the Senate, we'll have an actually opportunity to amend it," he said.

If Republicans do stand in lockstep against the bill, the vote of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) could become crucial. Gregg has been tapped to be Obama's Commerce Secretary but will remain a Senator for some time. As a prospective member of Obama's cabinet, Gregg would be expected to support the president, despite his party status, setting up an awkward voting situation.

Stewart said he wasn't sure how that scenario would play out. "This is a funny place," he observed.