As for the NEA funding, Dems may see it as a disposable item, free to be tossed as a concession; unfortunately, the GOP frames the presence of the funding as evidence that the Dems are just loading up the bill with their pet, liberal interests, none of which have anything to do with stimulating the economy.  Tossing out the funding is not seen as Dems making a concession, but as the GOP saving America from the reckless and irresponsible and wrong-headed Democrats.

They'd deliberately make the bill ineffective, still complain about the tiny bits of value left in it, and when what has become their bill fails to lift the economy, point out that they voted against it all the way through.

At this point, the negotiations/concessions are not particularly important...it's taking an already bad bill and making it a little worse...not such a big deal when taken in context of Obama's weak and innefective bill.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I would have much preferred at least 3 separate bills - one for tax policy, one for unemployment benefits and job training, and one for the infrastructure spending. Maybe it's the engineer in me that likes to see things more logically organized. It would also make it clear who is in favor of what. Of course, that's exactly what congresscritters do not like.

the Lipinski amendment adding $3 billion in transit infrastructure funding to the House economic stimulus legislation passed!

You can't push a rope.
Tell an out of work plumber that you gave him or her a 5000$ tax deduction, and they will laugh right in your face. He or she has to have an income for tax deductions to even matter. Since we don't tax unemployment any more, it is irrelevant to their lives, something perhaps forgotten by the patrician members of Congress. Unless you give the plumber the 5000$ in the first place, they aren't going to have it, and if you give it to them, you might as well get a bathroom remodel out of it. I'm never going to buy that new widescreen HDTV or new multicore gaming computer while I'm trying to figure out how to keep my house and feed my family at the same time. Give me a job, kill the deficit, then we can talk about a tax cut.

Don't tell me tax cuts are economic stimulus.
There can be exceptions to this rule. It happens in the area of tax credits, like the investment tax credits. We should double the solar investment tax credit. This isn't stimulus, it's incentive. It's good policy. But none of the stimulus or bailout packages so far deal with the problems on Main Street. During Bush's two terms, we saw business after business go away. That's OK. Ninety five percent of bars and restaurants don't make it to the two year mark. But this time, they were replaced with "Got Space?" and "For Lease" signs instead of another business. We cater to the largest businesses, who have less than 1/3 of the jobs. The mistake of being focused on bigger businesses is that they won't create any jobs in a down economy. They are driven by the myopic need for profit in the quarter, and to heck with what the country needs (sorry to quote the New Republican motto). In a down economy, 90% of the new job growth comes from small business.

If anyone really cared about getting us out of this mess, they would put the entire 350B$ of the second half of the financial bailout into the Small Business Administration. The small business community is starved for the money, would hire people immediately, and will fill all that empty space in our communities. Despite how many bathrooms you remodel, sooner or later, you are going to need a Boba Tea to sell them the Maui Fruit Smoothie that will make them want to use it. Otherwise we risk having a bunch of pretty new places and no one wants to go.

Meanwhile Obama is going to play hardball.