We're waiting to get Dino Rossi's reaction to Sen. Patty Murray's big amendment this morning which gives budget-strapped states $16 billion in Medicaid help and $10 billion for teachers salaries.

Washington state is getting is $340 million and $250 million of that cash respectively. The money comes with offsets, which inoculates Murray against Rossi's earlier criticism of the $34 billion emergency unemployment insurance that Democrats passed last month.

However, Tea Party candidate Clint Didier was quick to release a statement.

“So now we have Sen. Murray  passing another bail-out, but this time she’s bailing out her own Democrat Party in Washington state, and rewarding them for their fiscal responsibility.

“It’s what we’ve come to expect from an incumbent ‘bring home the pork’ politician. It’s hard to read it as anything other than another calculated move by a Senator whose reelection is in jeopardy.

“She’s not only trying to save some for votes for herself, but also reward the irresponsible spending by the State Democrats who dug themselves into a budget crisis in the Legislature.

“We wouldn’t have this budget crisis here if the state legislators had done their job and made the budget cuts that are needed.  Those cuts could have been made anywhere – not just to Medicaid."