WASHINGTON (CNN) — A bipartisan group of senators said Thursday they were going "line by line" through the economic stimulus bill as they try to reach a compromise on an amendment to cut some spending from the package.
Sen. Susan Collins says senators worked late into the night on the stimulus bill.
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, said there is a "backbone" to a deal, but the details were being worked out between the 12 Democrats and five Republicans at the meeting.
"It’s been a painstaking, very thorough, very comprehensive process," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Republicans have objected to some provisions in the bill that they say have nothing to do with stimulating the economy.
The president stepped up his personal lobbying for the bill this week, holding a series of one-on-one meetings in the Oval Office on Wednesday with key senators still on the fence.
Obama met separately with Collins, Democrat Ben Nelson and Republican Olympia Snowe.
Collins said she went through some specific programs with the president to see which ones he would be willing to cut.
Collins said she was originally in favor of a bill that would have cost about $650 billion, but after meeting with Obama, she was convinced of the need for a proposal that would be in the neighborhood of $800 billion.
"But I will tell you, particularly on my side of the aisle, there is a vigorous debate over what the size of the package should be," she said.
"We don’t want a package that is too small because that will end up just wasting money. On the other hand, we’re very leery of having an enormous package that would not be necessary and would just boost the federal deficit," Collins said as Nelson nodded in agreement.
Collins took the information she got from the president and worked late into the night with Nelson to figure out what they can do to scrub unnecessary spending from the bill in a way that the White House and Democratic leaders will accept.
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"Whatever you have in there … you want to be as robust a stimulus as you can have it so that it’s not just a spending bill," Nelson said.
The senators’ aides were asked to leave the meeting while the lawmakers worked, and wound up standing in the hallway.
"We felt that staff could be helpful, but in this situation, that we needed to work with one another to put together something that we as members really can feel comfortable with, and use staff as a resource rather than the traditional way," Nelson said.
In the House, the leaders of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative Democrats, sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asking that some of the provisions Republicans have objected to be removed from the House bill and be tak
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