The government is starting to send out the first installments of $787 billion stimulus package Wednesday as White House officials warned against delay or waste. Americans were watching, too, as a new government website tracking the spending was already receiving 3,000 hits per second.
       “We have to actually get this money out the door,” Vice President Joe Biden said at the first meeting of an administration group created to monitor the spending.
       “I don't want to hear that we sent money out to renovate a school in a particular city in a particular state…I don't want to get a phone call saying, you know, it's been sitting there and nothing's happened for three weeks; now it's five weeks and it's seven weeks,” Biden said.
       Biden announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development Wednesday started the process of sending $10 billion to states and local governments to make public housing energy efficient and remove lead-based paint from public housing.
       Also, the Department of Health and Human Services already has started sending $15 billion in Medicaid money to states to help pay for healthcare for children and the elderly, officials said.
       More will be going out quickly, said Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
       “Over the next couple weeks, you will also see money becoming available in food stamps, unemployment insurance, low-income housing tax credits, law enforcement grants, transportation funding and a variety of other areas,” he said.
       Also, officials noted that a small tax cut will result in higher take home pay for most Americans by April 1.
       The new website set up so Americans can see how and where the stimulus money is being spent is already receiving heavy web traffic, Orszag said, “which I think underscores the interest in the accountability and transparency surrounding this endeavor.”