News-Record.com

A great many of us scruffy media types who work in the states have been looking for anything resembling meaningful information regarding the stimulus bill Congress is supposedly due to pass this week.

While some broad strokes are available, there's nothing like the level of detail out there that would let us say with any precision or confidence how much money North Carolina might get for a particular program or to even begin thinking about translating that down to a county level. Yes, you can sort of extrapolate from prior versions of the bill, about how much in free-and-clear state aid or Medicaid funding might be coming down, but it’s really guesswork at this point. Take this bulletin from the AP:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina lawmakers are trying to get an early read on what federal economic stimulus legislation would mean for local construction projects and government payrolls.

State House Speaker Joe Hackney said Thursday a previous estimate of $2.2 billion in Medicaid help from Washington could be reduced. The federal $789 billion package is on track for final votes in Congress on Friday.

A key question affecting state government jobs is how much North Carolina would receive in funds designed to help states cope with the recession. Hackney, an Orange County Democrat, said the chunk targeted to help state budgets is about midway between previous congressional versions.

After striking out with normally helpful staffers in Gov. Bev Perdue’s office and at a couple Congressional offices in D.C., I put out a tweet looking for help. That request copied to my Facebook account where Stateline's Dan Vock pointed me to this post by the Sunlight Foundation:

While the House and Senate conferees have agreed on what the stimulus bill will look like in final form, the public may very well have to wait for President Obama to sign it to get a chance to read it. The House rules require that all conference reports (which is how the bill will be reported to the floor) be made publicly available for 48 hours before consideration. Yesterday, the House Rules Committee waived that requirement to allow the House leadership to bring the bill to floor immediately. And we still have not seen the bill, and “we” includes many, many members of Congress.

At this point, I have a great deal of sympathy for the point of view that any piece of legislation, much less one that spends $790 billion, which cannot stand up to public scrutiny before it is voted upon might not be worth the paper you haven't printed it on yet. This hardly fits with promises of a more open and accountable government we’ve heard so much about.