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.