As President Obama goes before a Joint Session of Congress Thursday night to present his plans for job creation and economic growth, the White House hinted that a detailed legislative proposal would be sent to lawmakers, not just a broad set of ideas.
"Tonite the President will unveil "The American Jobs Act" to put people back to work," said White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer on Twitter, who added "It is fully paid for."
How that's done will be very important, especially for Republicans, many of whom believe the fine print will just be a laundry list of things that have been proposed by this administration and rejected by both parties in the Congress.
"From what we've heard about the President's speech, it could be a lot of the 'same old same old,'" said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA).
As I poked around the basement of the Capitol looking for Senators yesterday, that was a common theme from Republicans, who were skeptical that the President would offer anything notable on job creation.
"Do you think you'll hear much you like?" I asked Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK).
"You know better than that, Jamie," he said with a chuckle as the Oklahoma Republican quickly zeroed in on the President's efforts to create jobs.
"He has not done anything at all to help us get a highway bill through," Inhofe said.
As for Democrats, many of them want to see something big from the President, not just a middle-of-the-road plan that might appeal to some Republicans.
"How do you say let's not fix our bridges and let's not build new water and sewer systems," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
"We'll never cut our way to prosperity," Brown argued, while we rode the Senate subway. "We've got to focus on job creation."
But one key middle ground Senator was already casting doubt on whether he would support what's been described as a $300 billion jobs plan, as Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said it's more important to fix the budget deficit right now.
"We have to balance our budgets before we start taking on new debt," said Lieberman.
Some Democrats were not in a talkative mood about the Obama speech, as Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida waved off my questions about the new jobs plan, saying he wanted to talk later.
The speech will come a few hours after the first public meeting of the so-called "Supercommittee," the 12 member House-Senate joint panel that will work on ways for major budget savings.
Several Democratic members have made clear in recent days that they want the Supercommittee's work to include new plans for job creation, even if that means extra spending to get it done.
"I certainly believe that if we're going to get America back on track, we can't fiddle on the edges," said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA).
"It's absolutely essential to put America back to work if you want to reduce the deficit," added Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
While the White House was not detailing the plans to be offered tonight, officials were promising that the Obama plan would be "fully paid for" - which made Republicans wonder if that means tax increases in the future.
We'll see how detailed the speech will be; it starts at 7pm EDT.
