Stimulating Feelings

Day 3 of the internship today. I arrived in the snow at around noon, after a morning class, to find the staffers debating the merits of different aspects of the proposed economic stimulus package, especially the White House's apparent willingness to scrap provisions for family planning funding in an attempt to gain support of key Republican lawmakers. President Obama came up to the Hill today and spoke the GOP Conference meetings on both sides of the Capitol, though it appears that the GOP leadership is going to strongly fight the stimulus.

Most of the day was spent listening to and cataloging messages left during a telephone town hall that Rep. Murphy did last Wednesday, as well as answering phone calls from constituents, most of them did not support the stimulus, and if they did, they wanted eVerify, a Homeland Security program to verify the work and immigration status of job applicants, to be in the bill.

I think that the best way to make the most out of internships like this is to simply be prepared to go the extra mile and take any opportunity offered, whether its a research assignment for a staffer or going to a briefing.

A full day is in store for tomorrow, it should be interesting.