Irony: The “Stimulus” Bill That Was Passed Without Transparency Contains Provisions For Transparency

On the Tuesday before the the “stimulus” spending spree was passed by Congress the House of Representatives voted to allow at least 48 hours of scrutiny and debate on the bill before it was put to a vote. Obama himself promised that before any bill, even an allegedly “emergency” bill like the stimulus was passed, it would be posted on the internet for at least five days for analysis.
Just after midnight yesterday morning the finalized version of the “stimulus” spending spree was posted on the internet and made available to all of the lawmakers who were to vote on it. By yesterday evening the Democrats had forced a vote on the bill and it passed. Meaning that House Democrats not only broke their promise for 48 hours of scrutiny, when Barack Obama inevitably signs the bill he’ll be breaking his own promise and transparency.
And what’s ironic is that this craptacular bill that was just ram-rodded through Congress by Democrats with only the barest minimum of debate actually contains provisions for transparency. As reader Queenzell points out:

Ironic that on page 1,052 you find this:
Subtitle A—Recovery Accountability
9 and Transparency Board
10 SEC. 1511. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE RECOVERY ACCOUNT
11ABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY BOARD.
12 There is established the Recovery Accountability and
13 Transparency Board to coordinate and conduct oversight
14 of covered funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse
Seems to me that fraud, waste & abuse was well underway prior to this thing being passed. Or, as one of my favorite men, Mark Steyn eloquently called it, “The hideous drooling blob of toxic pustules dignified as the “stimulus” bill.”

If transparency was so important to the Democrats and Obama that they included it in this bill, couldn’t they have at least kept their own promises to allow debate and scrutiny of the final version of it before it was passed into law?
The answer to that is “Of course they couldn’t.” They couldn’t allow extended debate and scrutiny because letting Americans catch wind of what an abomination this bill is might have meant it wouldn’t pass. Or that some of the goodies they tucked into it – like a national health care bureaucracy that’s going to review our medical records to make sure we’re getting government-approved care and cost us billions of dollars along the way – would get removed before the bill passed.
And getting this bill passed was more important than any smokescreen of responsibility or accountability they had set up.