Peter Suderman: How the Government Flushed Away the Stimulus

According to President Barack Obama, the $833 stimulus would "put people back to work and get our economy moving again," creating between 2 million and 2.5 million jobs. Instead, writes Peter Suderman, the economy followed the money right down the drain. What went wrong? Plenty. The stimulus was rushed to passage based on economic assumptions that remain hotly contested. Its implementation was marred by politics, logistics, and red tape. And the aid it directed toward the country's least well off may have undermined the very recovery it was designed to hasten. This is what happens when politicians insist that something big must be done, even if they're not sure what that something should be.