Freshman Dem Risks The Ire of the Dem Establishment

You've got to hand it to freshman Blue Dog Dem Walt Minnick from Idaho for daring to defy his party's leadership and come up with a stimulus bill of his own that actually would act as a stimulus and costs a fraction of what's being debated now:

“The biggest difference is that I’ve cut out everything that doesn’t create jobs in this year and next,” Minnick said Thursday. “It’s only $174 billion, $650 billion less than what the House passed and probably $750 billion less than the trillion dollar bill the Senate is talking about. It focuses on infrastructure spending, there’s $70 billion on bridges, roads and school construction and there’s $100 billion on tax cuts to middle and low income people.

Minnick said his proposal would spend all the money by the end of 2010, while the White House proposal would only spend 30 percent of the larger amount they’re proposing.

This poor guy will probably find out his office has been moved to a broom closet and his committee assignments will be to committees that don't exist.