Is the Stimulus Bill Really Working?

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus plan to create new jobs and invest in America’s infrastructure (new roads, bridges, etc.). The administration credits the stimulus with saving or creating two million jobs (although the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office offers a wider range, putting that figure somewhere between 800,000 and 2.4 million). According to ABC News, a senior administration official projected that stimulus funding will save or create another 1.5 million jobs this year.
 
Later today, Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver a report to President Barack Obama about the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And throughout the week, administration officials will be traveling to more than 35 cities across the country to “tout the measure’s success,” Bloomberg.com reported.
 
But not everyone is happy, reports ABC News, and the future of these jobs looks uncertain.
 
Although $453 billion – about 57 percent of the total package – has been used, questions remain about whether that funding has been dispersed wisely. According to the administration’s inspector general, 20 community agencies that are slated to receive $45 million are “at risk for fraud, waste and abuse." The American public also seems to lack confidence in the stimulus plan. A New York Times/CBS News poll released today stated that only 6 percent of Americans think the package has created jobs – and 48 percent don’t think it will, period.
 
Also among those concerned are school districts who are wondering what will happen when their stimulus funding ends in 2010 and 2011. "In many school districts, the stimulus has sort of prevented layoffs up until a certain point, and now states are sort of looking at, well now what do we do without the stimulus money," said Michael Grabell, a reporter at ProPublica, a public interest group that tracks stimulus spending.
 
The response? Christina Romer, chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, said this morning on Good Morning America that "the bang from the stimulus is not in the past, and that the administration is reviewing other ways to expand job growth."
 
Did you spend or save your stimulus money? Where would you like to see it go? Comment below.
 
Photo source: Howie Luvzus, C.C. 2.0