Obama and McCain Back at It, Over Stimulus

How to spend hundreds of billions of dollars has a way of opening up old rivalries, the Washington Times reports, with John McCain—who recently pledged to cooperate with President Obama—spearheading the Senate effort to rewrite the stimulus package. “I cannot and do not support the package on the table from the Democrats and the Obama Administration,” McCain wrote to his email list yesterday.

McCain is leading conservative senators seeking to halve the size of the stimulus package, the Financial Times adds, and accusing Democrats of “trying to jam” their bill to passage. Displeased with money going to the Smithsonian and the National Endowment for the Arts, McCain says, “It would be comical if this weren’t such a serious issue.” (More economic stimulus package stories.)