If you have been following the news over the past week you have noticed that President Obama’s Economic Stimulus package has passed in the House and is now up for deliberation in the Senate.  The Stimulus plan is expected to cost anywhere from $800 billion to over $1 trillion depending on which version you look at(House and Senate).

The impact this bill will have on the economy is dubious, last week the Congressional Budget Office released a study that found that only 21% of the money in the House Stimulus Package would be spent in 2009. That means that only $168 Billion of the $800 Billion meant to stimulate the economy would even be used this year.

Also, economists have raised the question of whether the $800+ billion would even go to stimulating the economy. The Editorial board of the Wall Street Journal provided this analysis:

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.

Finally, one other important consideration is the vast amounts of pork, pet-projects and items that will not directly stimulate the economy. In a January 6th news conference, then President-Elect said:

[The stimulus bill will set a] “new higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight. We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert projects without review.”

The Wall Street Journal, The Heritage Foundation, media outlets and other organizations have been examining the 674 page House Stimulus Package. The results are shocking

• $50 Million for the National Endowment for the Arts
• $1 Billion for Amtrak
• $2 Billion for childcare subsidies
• $600 Million for the federal government to buy new cars

As one commentator on the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Report suggested this weekend, maybe President Obama  is better off buying each American 1,000 boxes of girl scouts cookies. I think this plan has the potential to stimulate the economy as much as the proposed plan and it will at least make us feel good.