By David Saltonstall, New York Daily News.

Congressional Power Hitters:
* Sen. Chuck Schumer: The Senate's third-ranking Democrat. He's a 900-pound gorilla who gets a seat at any table he wants, and he wants a lot.
* Rep. Charlie Rangel: After 38 years in office, Rangel is head of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, where tax policy gets born.
* Rep. Nita Lowey: Her seat on the Appropriations Committee, the strings of the House purse, allowed her to push hard for more education dollars in stimulus bill.
* Rep. Jerrold Nadler: With billions in infrastructure dollars to be spent, Nadler's expertise and seat on Transportation Committee will be increasingly important.

Rarely has a bigger tidal wave of cash come rolling out of Washington than the stimulus bill President Obama is to sign Tuesday - and rarely has New York been better positioned to ride it.

In a confluence of seniority, hard work and some luck, New York's congressional delegation is stacked with power players, and it shows in how the massive, $787 billion stimulus package will soon be carved up.

What's known is this: New York is getting more money for Medicaid relief ($12.6 billion), mass transit ($1.3 billion) and home weatherization ($403 million) than any other state. Other categories may well break New York's way, once funding formulas are set.

"We have come of age," exulted former Mayor Ed Koch, who remembers a time not too long ago when New York's delegation was routinely steamrolled, mostly by powerful Southern Democrats who saw New York as Sin City.

The undisputed captain of this new all-star team is Sen. Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate. He is widely credited, while serving as his party's campaign chief, with wresting the chamber away from the GOP in 2006, then adding to the the Democrats' margin in 2008.

"Pretty much everyone from [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid on down owes their job to Chuck," said one Democratic insider. "So whatever Chuck wants, Chuck gets."

Schumer is followed closely by Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-Manhattan), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Veteran observers say they cannot remember a time when New York had such heavy hitters at both ends of the Capitol.

There are other key members. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Bronx/Westchester) and Rep. Jose Serrano (D-Bronx) are both senior members of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the keepers of the nation's purse strings.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan/Brooklyn) won - then lost - a $3 billion increase in transit funding during last week's negotiations. But with so much of the stimulus bill tied to public works, his seat on the House Transportation Committee is bound to help New York.

Less senior impact players include Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens), who successfully championed $1 billion in new grants to help localities hire more cops (New York could gain as many as 400). And Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx) got kudos last week for helping to push New York's Medicaid numbers high.

Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that there are also a number of New Yorkers inside the White House - among them Obama political director Patrick Gaspard, Housing chief Shaun Donovan and, yes, Secretary of State Clinton - all of whom know city issues inside and out.

As Weiner said of the $390 million that will soon flow toward New York's aging housing projects, "Trying to explain public housing elevators to the Bush administration was the equivalent of talking French to a fish."

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