Maloney seems to view the distribution of more funds as a necessary evil. In this she is having to trust those who pretend to know what the right solutions are. “We have heard from economists that the stimulus package that we are working on, which is roughly $800 billion, may not be enough to stabilize our economy long term … all I can say is I’m not an economist – the economists are calling for it.”

As to the efforts by Barney Frank to crack down on those receiving government assistance, Maloney shares voter outrage that the first $350 billion distributed by the Treasury has had so little oversight.

“When you have banks getting a lot of money and you see them buying roads in Spain, banks in China, doing mergers and acquisitions and people in my district telling me they can’t get their line of credit, they can’t get a loan, their commercial loans aren’t there. We need to compare the record and see who is actually putting the money back into the economy. If a bank is only taking the money and investing in China than I would argue that taxpayers should no longer give money to that bank. It’s really in response to American taxpayers who want to know — where did the money go? All we see is big banks getting bigger, buying more banks. It’s a means of tracking who’s doing the job to help the economy and who’s not.

In the end, will Maloney and her colleagues get the job done, and pass the bill?

“We have difficulty with it now. We’re trying to make it bipartisan; we want to get at least 60 Republican votes. I believe it will pass because it is the top priority of President-elect Obama. Every single economist, both conservative and liberal, who has testified before our committee has been calling this the Great Recession because they believe it will be longer and deeper than any recession since the Great Depression, and it requires solutions that address the magnitude of these economic woes. We’ve taken numerous steps to buffer it, but we need to do more.”

Maloney may also need to do more to win the Senate seat. Like spice up her conversation with a few well-chosen “you knows” for instance.