The Senate will begin debate tomorrow on a measure that differs from the House stimulus package in a number of ways. To begin, it is larger, at $887 billion. It includes $70 billion in “lost” projected revenue in order to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hitting millions of middle class families it was never intended to hit, and at $109 billion it also contains significantly more funding for “green energy” projects–a long-term investment that may seem out of place in a short-term, temporary stimulus package.

Ahead of that debate, and ahead of the Republican Policy Committee’s informal hearing on the stimulus this evening, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) held a press conference in the Capitol this morning on the package’s future in the Senate. He followed the lead of House Republicans in arguing that there is a great rift between the way President Obama has treated the package and the way congressional Democratic leaders have handled it. The President has tried to reach out, but congressional Democrats have been extremely partisan and less conciliatory.

“I know the Democratic leadership is going down to the White House tonight. I hope [President Obama] can get through to them that the way to build this package is indeed to do it on a bipartisan basis, which doesn’t mean just talking to us, but including ideas that we think would work. And also we need to make sure we’re not just borrowing money to spend on projects that are not going to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, at least to this point, it does not appear that the Democratic leadership has gotten the memo from the President . . . I hope he’s going to be able to put the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate in line. He’s going to have to talk to them, to tell them that the measures they’ve been moving forward do not meet his own standard.”

McConnell said he draws hope from many Senate Democrats’ unease with the stimulus measure. “There’s considerable Democartic senatorial unrest about this package. Hopefully we’ll see that exhibited on various bipartisan amendments where we’ll have some success.”

Might there be a filibuster of the bill? “I’m not going to comment on what procedural tactics we might employ, but no one is trying to prevent a package from passing,” he said.

McConnell said that the economic crisis began with housing, and that the stimulus package should attack that problem directly with a mortgage bailout and a low-income tax cut. With that in mind, he mentioned two changes he would like to see in the package. The first is inclusion of Glenn Hubbard’s plan to have the government subsidize and temporarily guarantee low fixed-rate residential mortgages at 4 percent. The second change is a reduction of the rates for the bottom two income tax brackets, from 10 and 15 percent to 5 and 10 percent.

Asked whether the confluence of bipartisan ideas could simply result in a larger package with more elements, McConnell said he did not believe Republicans would be more inclined to support a larger bill. But the reporter who asked that question knew exactly what he was talking about: Appropriations bills tend to grow so that everyone gets something they want. It should not come as a surprise to anyone if this bill emerges from House-Senate negotiations with a price tag larger than both the $819 billion number in the House and the $887 billion number in the Senate.

McConnell preemptively said he would offer no comments on HHS nominee Tom Daschle’s tax problems, or Sen. Judd Gregg’s (R., N.H.) possible appointment as commerce secretary. On this, he was true to his word.