When Congress was considering the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus spending plan, there was very little debate because Democratic backers of the gigantic spending plan said urgent passage was necessary to start creating jobs.

Critics complained that much of the spending would not happen for several years or more, and therefore would do little to ease the recession. Their fears were dismissed. Supporters of the record-setting spending plan said there was no time to debate details, such as how or when the money would be spent.

Now, three months after the $787 billion spending plan was rushed through Congress, the federal government reportedly has spent about 6 percent of the total. And most of that has been spent to help states cover costs associated with Medicare and unemployment benefits.

Such spending can be defended as humane and certainly helps states facing severe budget pressures. But the stimulus money was marketed as creating jobs — and quickly.

The Obama administration claims that stimulus money already has created or saved 150,000 jobs. Using the phrase "create or save jobs" is clever and means it is impossible to verify or challenge any job figure.

It's true that saving a job is nearly as important as creating one. But new jobs can be tracked and verified. Saved jobs cannot be verified. And because "saved jobs" cannot be quantified, those figures are sure to be subjected to political spin.

It should be acknowledged that federal stimulus spending in a recession is an idea supported by most economists. But when President Barack Obama promised that the money would be spent wisely to create, or save, jobs, and that every dollar of spending would be tracked, he was promising the impossible.

Accountability for government spending of large amounts of money is difficult under normal circumstances. And rushed legislation to quickly spend $787 billion will surely lead to plenty of questionable spending, waste and abuse.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell has promised the money will be spent wisely and he has set up a special commission to monitor spending of the new federal money. Yet state Auditor General Jack Wagner, in April, issued a warning that the state was not equipped to effectively track spending of the $16 billion the state is expected to receive as its share of the federal stimulus bill.

With the emphasis on "shovel ready" projects and the sense of urgency coming out of Washington, D.C., how many "bridges to nowhere" will be built? Even if there is some government tracking and journalists following the money, by the time a controversial spending project comes to light, it is quite possible the money will already have been spent.

There should be more oversight of projects approved for spending, rather than government reports after the money has been spent.

Echoing Wagner's fears about stimulus spending oversight in Pennsylvania, there is increasing skepticism about the federal government's ability to track all of the additional spending. The Internet-based system touted by Obama is underwhelming. Last week, it was reported that the federal database to be used for tracking stimulus spending will not be fully functional until October, or later.

And there are growing concerns that stimulus money will be tracked only at a superficial level, meaning the system will not follow money moving from the federal level to states, then to counties or cities, and finally to contractors and subcontractors,

Beyond tracking challenges, there are growing fears that states, counties and cities will fund nonessential projects, just to get the money. A wish list produced during a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in December listed athletic fields, sidewalks, streetlights, dog parks and various beautification projects.

Such efforts might be a way to quickly spend money, but they are not the sort of critical infrastructure investments that Obama and other stimulus bill backers promised.

Even as taxpayers are distracted by other crises, such as accelerated depletion of Medicare and Social Security, or taxpayers' bailout of the financial and automotive industries, pressure should remain on federal and state governments to ensure that the stimulus money is not spent on wasteful projects or because of political influence.

So far, taxpayers have little reason to hope stimulus money will be spent any more wisely than normal government spending. And given the rush to spend quickly, the waste and abuse could very well be worse than usual.

And if that happens, voters will have been reminded that talk is cheap, and they should hold politicians accountable.