Congress just voted almost a trillion dollars in new spending on a party-line vote. And it seems that Republicans could be denied any role in overseeing the stimulus funds.
Both the House and the Senate version of the stimulus bill reject any congressional oversight of the stimulus funds. Both bills put responsibility for oversight into the hands of presidential nominees – without any obligation to choose any representatives at all from the other party.
Both House and Senate versions entrust oversight responsibility to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. The board is to be composed of the inspectors general of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation, Treasury, and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The board is to be chaired by the deputy director for management for the Office of Management and Budget or another federal officer – both again presidential appointees.
The bill also creates an advisory panel to assist the board. This panel, too, is to be chosen by the president at his discretion, without Senate confirmation, and with no obligation to include Republicans.
One Senate GOP staffer explained the outrage over this language: “One of the reasons that Democrats are forcing their expensive package through Congress so quickly is so average Americans won’t have time to digest its contents. Because if anyone knew that the check-writing process was being supervised by political cronies rather than a bipartisan group of officials, they would march on the Mall with pitchforks.”
You might wonder: Don’t Democrats worry about entrusting such sweeping powers to a possible future Republican president? It seems that they do. The bill provides for the panel’s termination a month before the next presidential election, on Sept. 30, 2012.
9 responses so far
1 sinz54 // Feb 12, 2009 at 7:32 am
I understand the purpose of this. “Congressional oversight” would devolve into congressmen protecting the infrastructure projects of their own districts from oversight by other congressmen, and especially from attempts by the rest of congress to cut funding for those projects. Every congressmen would protect the projects in his district, and attack the projects in the districts of the opposition party as wasteful. This is an attempt to take such pork-barrel and log-rolling concerns out of the process.
2 gospelance // Feb 12, 2009 at 8:12 am
the Dems are making some shameless power grabs here. another one is the census. they probably justify it by asserting that “it’s what the country needs.” —their “enlightened” leadership, that is.
3 Bulldoglover100 // Feb 12, 2009 at 9:08 am
Our Party did not want bipartisanship and sooner or later people in this party will wake up to the fact that the Karl Rove politics are not working for us anymore. The rest of the country is passing us by. Instead of screaming on any MSM show that would have us we should have been working towards something that would help this country and make us apprear relevent because the fact remains. The people in this country voted us out of power and the Dems are in the drivers seat right now.
Fighting against a program that the same majority thinks will help this nation will not garner us any support from those who voted it away from us.
It’s a hard truth we had better learn or we will be in this position for a long time. If Obama’s plan works? Bet on it and now? If it does? We can take no kudo’s for helping.
4 ratmalph // Feb 12, 2009 at 9:19 am
“Congress just voted almost a trillion dollars in new spending on a party-line vote.”
Wasn’t the stimulus bill that passed $790 billion, as in $210 billion shy of a trillion?
If I was in the market for a TV that was $790, I would say it was almost $800, not almost $1,000 and we’re talking about a significantly smaller number there.
5 larryo // Feb 12, 2009 at 10:33 am
Poor babies! How long did the country have to examine the Patriot Act before a vote was forced?
6 Sigfraud // Feb 12, 2009 at 10:34 am
Yeah right… I just bought a donut for breakfast… it cost me almost $210 billion.
7 Oneon1isto // Feb 12, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Yes, the people-counters at the census bureau are actually a bastion of evil democratic tomfoolery. Part of the left-wing conspiracy. Anyway, I’m going to have to second sinz on this one. Congressional oversight for this bill would be a non-starter, and the point is to act quickly to stop the downward spiral. The oversight board also seems fairly comprehensive (way more than for the first 350), and with enough egos in the room to keep eachother in check. Which is to say this post seems aimed more at complaining about a democratic executive that yes, is exercising its executive power rather than anything else.
8 ErickJD08 // Feb 12, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I live in the Chicagoland area and Rahm Emanuel’s seat is up for election. I think this is an opportunity to elect a republican who will listen and practice responsible government spending. I recently looked into Greg Bedell’s campaign and he fits the bill.
We need to get a Republican in the 5th District in Illinois.
9 gospelance // Feb 13, 2009 at 6:21 am
Repubs must take a stand against the Leftist Regime. And I don’t think it will backfire, once they (the Obama voters) see what they have wrought.
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