Republican and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, generally speaking, are not a chummy bunch. In recent years they’ve seemed more inclined to hang each other than just to hang.

But, with half a dozen one-on-one meetings already this year, not to mention an equal number of phone calls, the neighbors are going to start talking about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Republican leader John Boehner (Ohio).

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge supporter of the appearance of bipartisanship, just like the next guy.

The occasional joint photo-op to greet the Second-Vice-High Potentate from Whocaristan, or the star-struck, lighter-than-air bipartisan meeting with the latest NASCAR racing champion to discuss international tire pressure standards are all perfectly fine in my book.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget the yearly, traditional, high-level, hush-hush, cultic, secret-handshake summit when Pelosi and Boehner meet to make sure no one blows the whistle on members’ automatic, seamless, non-parentage, zero-congressional-DNA pay raise.

That’s about as much bipartisanship as Congress can normally handle in a typical year.

But this is no typical year.

In a presidential primary season with voters arguably craving a little of that new, vision-imparting, change-ushering, gridlock-breaking stuff, Hill leaders from both parties seem to have come up with a new formula for survival — appear together whenever they can. Smile. Use the word “bipartisan” as often as possible. If that doesn’t work, throw cash around like proverbial sailors on shore leave.

I have now segued nicely into a well-thought-out analysis of the $150 billion-but-we-haven’t-heard-from-the-Senate-yet economic stimulus package. Let’s call this the ESP Bill — not a bad phrase, considering that it is anyone’s psychic guess whether the dollar figure is high enough, or whether the checks will actually be sent out fast enough to do the trick.

To make sure all FDA standards are met, they ought to label the bill exactly what it is — the Incumbent’s Protection Act.

No matter what they call it, the bill, which passed overwhelmingly Tuesday in the House, is designed to jump-start the nation’s ailing economy. The ESP Bill has meant loads and loads of news conferences, unending press releases and cable TV appearances by nervous politicians who are convinced that voters want to see “results,” no matter what that means or no matter what it costs.

Anything that shows clearly that the cellar-ratings Congress is on the job fixing things.

If this quick-fix kind of activity is what voters need to see to be convinced, standing in public with people who normally turn your stomach is a small price to pay. Hence the new bipartisanship.

All understandable, I suppose, given the basic, human concerns involved, not to mention every congressman’s No. 1 constitutional priority — self-preservation.

But if we get any more of these hastily arranged, smiley-face news conferences with Pelosi and Boehner trying to out-care each other in showing concern for the middle class, it is going to get very expensive, very quickly.

Throw in the prestige of a high-level Cabinet member such as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to sanctify the proceedings, plus the almost-certain Senate add-ons, and pretty soon we are going to be talking about real money.

As one Republican insider on Capitol Hill told me: “It is never a good thing when politicians want to hand out ‘free’ money.”

And what about those concerns about getting the $150 billion into the hands of lever-pulling voters as quickly as possible?

Maybe we could have all 535 members of Congress line up outside the Treasury on a first-come, first-served basis. You know, just like their colleagues who spent hours holding aisle seats in the House chamber Monday night so they could get their three-second “How ya doin’?” from President Bush after his State of the Union speech.

Let Paulson personally hand out Treasury goodie bags filled with each member’s quota of cash. By my calculation, $150 billion divided by 535 is … er … stand by … a hell of a lot of cash per member!

 Load up the bag with thousand-dollar bills and let members go back home and dole out their $280 million to their constituents any way they want. Door to door. Town hall meetings. Whatever. Doesn’t really matter. What matters here is results, people!

Heck, any cash left over can go to their annual secret pay raise slush fund. It’s free money, after all.

You can reach Jim Mills at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it