Stimulus money 'cannot be squandered': Biden

US Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday vowed accountability, saying the administration would withdraw stimulus money from states who do not use the funds as intended.

"We have to make sure this is done by the numbers. We have to make sure we know where the money's going. I've been talking to the governors, the mayors," Biden told ABC News.

"In some cases we can withdraw the money. We can hold them accountable. In other places, we'll just use the television and the radio and the media to embarrass them for them not doing what they're supposed to do."

Charged by Obama to oversee implementation of the stimulus plan -- "because nobody messes with Joe," Obama said -- the vice president was to hold later Wednesday the first meeting of a watchdog group of cabinet members and other government appointees.

"I called for a cabinet meeting that I'm going preside over to make sure that I know specifically what each cabinet member is doing and what resources they have available, how they're going to distribute those resources, how we're going to follow the money," Biden told CBS News, noting that he would also be meeting with business leaders.

"This cannot be squandered. We have an opportunity to get the nation back to work and back on its feet. And the first piece of that is generating some economic growth here," he said on ABC.

In his first primetime address to Congress late Tuesday, Obama unveiled a broad and ambitious agenda based on reforming education and healthcare, and developing reliable domestic sources of energy, among a blizzard of reforms and programs.

"We will rebuild, we will recover and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," he promised.

But some Republican governors have criticized the stimulus plan, saying it is wasteful and warning that they may not accept the funds.

Biden said the plan's implementation would be transparently and vigilantly monitored so that the administration can "follow the money."

"This is a matter of discipline and getting it right," Biden said on CBS. "That's what we intend to do."