Tax cheats to answer to Joe Biden for taking stimulus dollars?

Remember when that those who would try to waste the federal “stimulus” money ladled out in massive spoonfuls were warned not to mess with Joe [Biden]?  The president designated him “The Sheriff” overseeing the stimulus, “because,” the president quipped, “if you’re misusing taxpayer money, you’ll have to answer to him.”

Commenting on his role as “chief overseer of the government’s stimulus plan,” the Delaware Democrat said he would

. . . use his broad oversight role “to make sure people know where the money’s going” and will meet with Cabinet secretaries frequently, starting this morning, and speak regularly with governors and mayors as well. . . .

Biden said he will work with a team of oversight officials, including former Interior Department inspector general Earl Devaney, to track stimulus spending. Extensive information about how money is allocated and spent will be posted on the government Web site Recovery.gov, he said, in an effort to be as transparent as possible.

“I’m going to be moving to let people know exactly what’s going on and when,” Biden told CBS’s “Early Show.” If money is misspent, he said, “I will literally come on your show. I will be on television saying that, ‘We’re disappointed. This is what happened. The money was supposed to be spent for this; it got spent for that.’ “

Looks like he should be make a few television appearances.  “Tax cheats,” the AP reports, are “among recipients of stimulus money“:

Thousands of companies that cashed in on President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package owed the government millions in unpaid taxes, congressional investigators have found.

The Government Accountability Office, in a report being released Tuesday, said at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from the stimulus effort owed $757 million in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2009, the end of the budget year.