As Jim Manzi noted last night, the idea that anyone in the Senate will actually have a chance to read the final “stimulus” bill before voting today is a pipe dream. Well, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.) is now openly admitting that that no one voting on the bill will have read it, a problem made worse by a select group of Democrats secretly hammering through final changes.

It stands to reason that perhaps the most basic obligation members of Congress have is to know what they are voting for. And this is doubly true on a spending bill of this unprecedented magnitude. It’s also worth noting that President Obama campaigned on pushing for explicit transparency measures in Congress. John Dickerson at Slate helpfully pointed out what Change.gov says about legislative transparency:

End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: As president, Barack Obama will restore the American people’s trust in their government by making government more open and transparent. Obama will work to reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee mark-ups and conference committees, to be conducted in public.

Just a few weeks in office, and we already have the President enabling and encouraging one of the least transparent processes imaginable to muscle through an $800 billion spending bill. Does the administration think this amounts to change, or should I wait for them to get their new website, worsethanever.gov, up and running?