The $787 billion dollar stimulus bill will have checks and balances in place to account for the money as it is spent. Mike Simonson reports from Superior.

Safeguards include money for the Government Accountability Board and Inspector General to audit and investigate spending, a transparency board which will look for early warning signs of problems, a website which would show how the money is being distributed and spent, and protection of whistleblowers who report fraud and abuse.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey is a key negotiator of the stimulus bill.

“In contrast to the bail-out package that was provided for Wall Street in the last administration, we have over 30 pages of oversight requirements so that we can do the best job possible of tracking how this money is spent and what has been productive, what hasn’t and what needs to change.”

One of the goals of the stimulus package is to get the money out in the economy as fast as possible. So Obey says with the unprecedented size of this job creation bill and the urgency to spend it, he hopes to alleviate the concern of taxpayers.

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