I don't know. I skimmed the 640-odd-page bill (which is probably more than most of our congressional representatives did) and the answer didn't really jump out at me. Exactly how this thing is supposed to work is a bit sketchy.

The bill says, "You can't spend this money on casinos and strip clubs," then it goes on to give away appropriate enormous sums of money to various government departments.

It kind of reads like this:

The Department of Some Bullshit shall receive the sum of $473,000,000 to... um... do whatever that department does.

The Department of Some Other Bullshit shall receive $221,000,000 to carry out some other bullshit.

...and so on, for 670-some pages. For godsakes, the entire Constitution of the United States of America is, what, 15-20 pages?

Even with all that verbiage, the bill is short on specifics. No actual projects or large directives are named. There's no, "$1,230,000,000 shall go toward the construction of a high-speed rail line between Chicago and New York. Work shall be completed by (date)." So I guess shoveling imaginary money at bureaucrats is going to fix everything. How does that work again?

Speaking of imaginary money: Pardon my asking, but where in the heck is the money coming from? The rest of the world is asking this question.

The stimulus is widely expected to pass, but once it does, Roach said the focus will shift to "who foots the bill and what is the exit strategy. We don't have the answer to either question." (emphasis added)

Sound familiar? Last time we got into a situation like that, we ended up spending $700 billion+ (not to mention a bunch of human lives) to depose a tinpot dictator and leave his country in ruins.

Don't get me wrong: I hope the economic stimulus works, but I have strong doubts that it will. The bill should have set specific goals for job creation and specific goals for what the money would ultimately purchase.

If anything, it will make unemployment worse by slaughtering the dollar. You can't create endless amounts of money and expect the global markets to sop it up. Eventually, you'll create so much money (and so little wealth) that the money will become worthless. That's my opinion.