News Focus
News Focus
icon url

wbmw

02/18/09 5:04 PM

#76184 RE: Elmer Phud #76176

Re: The bill is 700 pages. Have you researched every detail of every page? I haven't and no congressperson has either.

Just look at my response to Koog. I made a point not to look at every detail, but I have browsed the spending part of the bill, and it didn't take a lot of time, due to the simplistic way it was written. Here's an example (and you can see why the bill totals a lot of pages, even though there isn't that much "meat" to it):

                                SCIENCE 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

science

For an additional amount for ``Science'', $400,000,000.

aeronautics

For an additional amount for ``Aeronautics'',
$150,000,000.

exploration

For an additional amount for ``Exploration'', $400,000,000.

cross agency support

For an additional amount for ``Cross Agency Support'',
$50,000,000.

office of inspector general

For an additional amount for ``Office of Inspector
General'', $2,000,000, to remain available until September
30, 2013.

By the way, elsewhere in the bill it specifies that these aren't exactly blank checks, but rather a way to partition the funds so that different parts of the government can spend it. NASA here, for example, will take these funds, and further partition it based on block grants to various small businesses and research groups. Obama's poster child when he signed the bill was called Namaste, and they design ways of capturing solar energy, and it's expected that Namaste will be one of the businesses getting funds, and hiring new people to carry out both research and development.

All of the spending will be monitored and put on the recovery.gov website for all to see. In theory, this will lead to complete transparency and accountability.