Obama's Stimulus Fail

The question about the stimulus was never: Can $800 billion of government money buy anything? The question always was - was this stimulus intelligently designed?

Talking Points Memo is passing out congratulatory cigars on the Obama stimulus:

It sure sounds like it's working...

The CBO now estimates that the stimulus put as many as 2.8 million people to work in the first three months of this year -- and raised GDP by as much as 4.2%.

The CBO estimates that the stimulus put 1.2 million to 2.8 million to work in the first quarter, and boosted GDP between 1.7% and 4.2%.

Thanks to the stimulus, the unemployment rate was lowered by between .7% and 1.5% in the first quarter, the CBO estimates.

But the question about the stimulus was never: Can $800 billion of government money buy ANYTHING? The question always was - was this stimulus intelligently designed? Did it generate the most activity at lowest possible cost? Would a payroll tax holiday have generated more jobs at less cost? And - above all - would the flow of stimulus dollars end when the recession ended?

Those are the questions CBO is NOT answering today, and on those measures the stimulus is still failing.