Even those in the White House have admitted the stimulus bill probably isn't enough to do the job. But this was just a single bill. More work will be done in most every bill passed by congress this year.
And yes, I really do mean most every bill. Remember those efficiency numbers everyone posted last month? Tax cuts for the rich do almost nothing but more money for the poor and middle class do a lot. Even if you are revenue neutral, every policy choice that directs money away from the richer and towards the poorer people helps the economy. The health care money put aside in Obama's budget, for instance, will be a big stimulus itself.
Although I'm not quite so sanguine as Mark (state budget cuts are going to be a bitch to offset), this is a very important point. In rightwing mythos land, every tax cut is always good for the economy--the product of not really thinking through all the effects it will have, including the opportunity costs of not putting that money to potentially much better uses. But in reality, money that goes to poor people does a helluva lot more good.
That's only the first step, however, as can be seen in this blog post Paul Krugman wrote back in mid-January:
Mark Zandi s Chief Economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com, where he directs the company's research and consulting activities. His analysis "The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Mark Zandi - January 21, 2009" [pdf] contains the following chart showing the relative efficacy ("bang for the buck") of different categories of tax cuts and spending measures. As can be seen, the spending measures deliver considerable more bang--particularly compared to the GOP favorites, such as making Bush Tax cuts permanent:
On the flip, I present an expanded version that adds information about how these differences translate into GDP and jobs, plus a snippet of commentary from Zandi.
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