Although the stimulus was created outside the normal appropriations process, it has come with repeated promises from Obama that his administration will root out wasteful spending, a pledge that is backed up in the bill with dollars and authority for staff to carry out his threats.

USA Today reports that "the stimulus bill contains $330.5 million for oversight and offers the president his first opportunity to put into practice his campaign pledge to demand greater accountability of federal spending. It provides $25 million for the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan congressional agency; $84 million to create an accountability board within the administration; and $221.5 million to the inspectors general who serve as department watchdogs."

In addition, the administration launched Recovery.gov, a Web site it says will allow citizens and government watchdogs to track where stimulus money is going.

President Obama used his weekly YouTube address to reiterate his promise to go "line by line" and reduce waste -- even as his advisers admit those savings will likely be plowed back into other programs.

In a transcript of the speech, entitled "Keeping Promises," Obama attributed increased spending to the state of the economy. "Given this reality, we’ll have to be more vigilant than ever in eliminating the programs we don’t need in order to make room for the investments we do need," he said. "I promised to do this by going through the federal budget page by page, and line by line. That is a process we have already begun, and I am pleased to say that we’ve already identified two trillion dollars worth of deficit-reductions over the next decade."

But the Washington Post reports that Obama's $2 trillion figure is questionable: "Administration officials have since acknowledged that his budget plan does not contain $2 trillion in spending cuts. It includes $1.5 trillion in 'savings' generated by comparing Obama's plan to wind down the war in Iraq against a scenario many consider unrealistic." White House officials say they will find more spending cuts by the time they deliver the final budget in April, but they admit that those savings will likely go into other programs.