The Senate is still deliberating over the economic recovery package, and Sen. Ben Nelson is right in the thick of things. As we mentioned yesterday, the Nebraska Democrat is leading a bipartisan brigade of 20 senators who are fighting to trim provisions that they argue won’t create jobs or encourage spending by consumers and businesses in the short-term. Tops on their list, according to the New York Times, is state aid:

By Thursday evening, aides said the group had drafted a list of nearly $90 billion in cuts, including $40 billion in aid for states, more than $14 billion for various education programs, $4.1 billion to make federal buildings energy efficient and $1.5 billion for broadband Internet service in rural areas. But they remained short of a deal.

Nelson should know better. In 2003, he lobbied President Bush to include in his “Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act” (literally described at the time as an "economic stimulus package") $20 billion in federal aid for Medicaid and other essential state-level social services.  From a May 16, 2003 press release:

“Fifteen thousand kids in Nebraska have lost health insurance in the last year. More than two thousand families have lost childcare subsidies. Twenty thousand farms may go under. Teachers are losing their jobs and all Nebraskans are paying higher taxes,” said Nelson. “The state needs this assistance now or else we will see more program cuts and more taxes.”

Not only is this type of spending stimulative (for every dollar spent on state fiscal relief, economist Marc Zandi predicts the nation would generate increased economic activity of $1.36), but it’s critical to stave off devastatingly deep and broad social cuts. As Ed Kilgore explains, the $24 billion Nelson and crew want to lop off is the only unrestricted money available to states in the entire package. This is crucial funding that budget-wrecked states need now.

Greg Sargent has the latest list of cuts from Nelson's crew, which has apparently been pared down from $90 billion to $80 billion. It includes numerous important spending areas, including food stamp expansion, school construction funding, and transit dollars.