A few days ago, a TPM reader noted that the Collins-Nelson proposals for spending cuts in the stimulus bill were incoherent: "They're not offering a comprehensive or coherent approach to stimulus spending. They haven't established a fixed standard, against which they're measuring each item."

Just watched Ben Nelson on Rachel's show, and she pressed him on just this issue...and was confronted with incoherence. There'll be a transcript up tomorrow, but here's the short version:

RACHEL: Why did you cut billions in state and education funding from the package?

NELSON: We wanted to make sure this was the most stimulative package possible.

RACHEL: But surely cutting aid to states, which will cause them to lay people off, is anti-stimulative - as is cutting aid to build schools.

NELSON: We're giving them lots of money - way more than they would have gotten otherwise.

RACHEL: Right, but because of your intervention, the bill has less money for states and education.

NELSON: Ah, well you see, we needed to get some Republican votes.

RACHEL: Ok, but you agree it's less stimulative than it was before.

NELSON: No, no, it's very stimulative.

If you can make sense of that, you're a better analyst than I. Keep in mind that Nelson himself said he would vote against the bill without some cuts...but the only concrete reason he can give for that is that he needed some Republican votes. Is he saying he would have voted against the bill simply because no Republicans would vote with him? Now, that's commitment to bipartisanship.