Democrats in the House are ready today to provide President Barack Obama with approval of an $825 billion economic stimulus package, sending it on to the Senate, where the real battling will take place.

The plan will definitely change in the Senate, where two key committees yesterday tinkered with the bill that the House will vote on today.

On the spending side, Senators added about $7 billion more in spending, but members of the Senate Appropriations Committee held off on offering amendments.

Instead, the battles will wait until Senate floor action begins, as soon as this week.

Over in the Senate Finance Committee, that panel made more substantive changes to the tax portion of the stimulus bill, adding in a $70 billion provision on the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The bipartisan plan would ease the effects of the AMT on families making more than $100,000 a year.

It's not clear what other amendments might come up on the Senate floor, but with Senate rules allowing a freewheeling debate, anything is possible, unless Democratic leaders decide to try to limit debate.

Other items that could come up include two that Senate Republicans specifically brought up to President Obama during their lunch meeting on Tuesday.

One would provide a temporary tax amnesty for US companies that are stashing money overseas, allowing them to bring it back home for investment without tax penalties.

The other would eliminate taxes on companies that buy back their own debt below face value.

I would like to think that we are going to have a wide open debate in the Senate, with votes on everything that both parties would like to do.

But I know what's going to happen most likely.

Democrats will try to structure the debate to their liking, Republicans will object, Democrats will start acting appalled at the behavior of the minority and will then move to shut off debate with a cloture motion.

And then everyone will point fingers at each other and say they're to blame for the current state of partisan politics in this country.

Hopefully that won't happen, because a wide open debate would be a lot more fun to cover.  But if the labels were switched, the GOP would probably do the same thing if they were running the show.

I bet Senate leaders try to force a final vote by Friday February 6.  Then negotiators will rush to finish a deal early the following week, so that this bill can be sent to President Obama by Friday the 13th.

Then maybe I can take the 16th off.