The editors of the Washington Post are willing to give the stimulus the benefit of the doubt — too kind, I would say — but they note some embarrassing figures:
It is true that just knowing that money has been authorized ($88 billion so far) can allow projects to get started and jobs to be created. Nonetheless, of the $20 billion approved for spending so far for the Education Department, for instance, 97.2 percent remains unspent. Of the $10 billion approved for the Transportation Department, a full 99.7 percent is still left to be spent.
Remember how we were told about how all those projects were “shovel-ready”? Three months later, most of those shovels are collecting dust.
Recall also that the stimulus had to be passed with less than two days for lawmakers to read the final version of the bill, because the administration insisted time was of the essence.