Congress is poised to pass a $789 billion stimulus bill intended to jolt the economy. After a lot of debate, tens of billions of dollars were cut from the House and Senate versions of the bill. Of course there is still more that should have been cut.

But in the effort to stop waste, fraud, and abuse in the economic stimulus funds, final passage of the bill isn't the end. It's only the end of the beginning.

Much of the stimulus funding is heading out of the treasury directly to federal agencies, states, and localities. This means the funding decisions will be distributed across the country, making it a massive challenge to track and follow. To assist this, the bill directs the creation of a central tracking web site, www.recovery.gov. Here, information about every project and every contract award is supposed to be posted. Separately, a panel is created to conduct oversight over the entire project. Additional funding is also added for Inspectors General (IGs) of affected agencies, and there is more money for the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

As always, the devil is in the details – it doesn't mean much what is written into law; it matters how the law is implemented and what actually happens on the ground.

The challenges are significant. The head of the special oversight panel is supposed to be the new Chief Performance Officer. But the original selection, Nancy Killefer, has withdrawn, and a new nominee has not been named. The House originally provided more than $200 million for the various Inspectors General and $25 million for the GAO, but that was slashed by the Senate to less than $90 million for the IGs and $20 million for the GAO. Thankfully, in the final bill, much of this funding was restored with the IGs getting nearly $200 million and the GAO receiving $25 million. And anyone who has launched a web site recognizes that there are going to be challenges in compiling and displaying information in a usable, helpful format.

To add to the complexity, some federal agencies are seeing their budgets doubled or more. Coupled with the demand for speed, it is easy to foresee billions of dollars being wasted. Lack of oversight, contract irregularities, or simply mismanagement by agencies with terrible fiscal accountability track records—like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—will be hard to avoid. In addition, you can be sure that the phone lines between Capitol Hill and federal agencies will be burning up as lawmakers try to ensure that the “right” projects get funded.

Similarly, the funding provided directly to the states or localities will have to be watched closely. Just because there aren't Congressional earmarks doesn't mean there aren't parochial or wasteful projects emanating from state agencies or mayors. You don't have to look any further than the recent list of possible projects the Conference of Mayors distributed, to realize this.

Monitoring the expenditures under the stimulus is going to be a herculean task. Taxpayers for Common Sense will be tracking the funding and rooting out waste as we have in spending bills for the past 14 years. But the federally funded and managed www.recovery.gov presents an opportunity for all citizens to help track the stimulus funding.

The stakes are high. Despite the massive criticisms leveled against this legislation, now we need to make this legislation work. In this light, and considering that the interest payments on this new nearly $800 billion package are going to top $350 billion over the next 10 years, we cannot afford to waste a penny.