How long it is…

Idaho’s legislative budget director, Cathy Holland-Smith, told JFAC just now that the federal economic stimulus bill is 407 pages long. Legislative budget analysts have printed it out. The 1,100-page stack of papers U.S. Sen. Jim Risch earlier showed the Idaho Senate included the House version, the Senate version, and the conference report. But the 407-page version is the “joined, combined, engrossed version” that is the official bill, Holland-Smith said. Then, however, there’s the conference report. “It’s twice as long as the bill,” she said. “It is an integral part of the bill - it actually gives more information about ways we can use this money as a state.” Then, there are explanatory statements that also are key to understanding the lengthy legislation. All are now available online, at recovery.gov , at the conference report here and at several other sites such as stateline.org .