Don't Ask, Won't Tell: No Role For Bipartisan Oversight On Stimulus

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.