Rolling Over Before The Fight

CNN quotes a House leadership aide thinking really small:

The aide insisted no decisions have been made on the price tag, and pushed back on the higher numbers floating around on the stimulus, which have ranged from $850 billion $1 trillion. "It's not going to be that. I just don't see it going up to $850 billion," said the aide, who pointed to the range cited by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier in the week -- $500-600 billion -- with a majority of the money devoted to infrastructure projects, and the rest designated to fund a middle class tax cut.

If this is the attitude top House staffers are going to take -- waving the white flag of surrender before the battle gets underway -- we're going to be in for a longer recession than is necessary.