The Stimulus 'spending'?

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or 'the Stimulus', if you prefer, ended up being $840 billion.  Are you one of the ignorant, or one the liars, who keeps calling that $840 billion 'spending'?

Do you think tax cuts are spending?

Of that $840 billion, tax cuts were $298.5 billion.  That leaves $641.5 billion.

Another $60.8 billion went for unemployment insurance.  The Bush Great Recession knocked a lot of people out of work.  That's not 'spending'.  That leaves $580.7 billion.

Some of the unemployed needed job training.  That was $4.2 billion.  Down to $576.5 billion.

When you lose your job you can take advantage of COBRA.  That was $3.7 billion and that leaves $572.8 billion.

When the federal government gives the states back some of their money for Medicare and Medicaid is that 'spending'?   Is that to 'stimulate' or is that returning tax dollars back to states so they could recover from the Bush era?  That was $85.4 billion.  We're all the way down to $487.4 billion now.

'Family Services'.  Once again, that's returning money to states to help those in need.  Although, for every dollar spent on 'food stamps', it generates $1.70 into the economy, it's stimulating but it's not spending.   After all, giving states back portions of the taxes they send to Washington isn't like squandering a couple of trillion in Iraq, is it?  'Family Services' was $85.3 billion and now it's down to, $402.1 billion.

You shouldn't forget social security recipients and veterans, should you?  That was $13.8 billion, leaving $388.3 billion.

Well, you get my point.  Of that $840 billion only $207.3 billion went to 'infrastructure' needs.  Hell, we've spent that much on Halliburton in our Iraq fiasco.

The problem with the stimulus is we didn't spend enough.  Sure, it saved or created up to 2.9 million jobs but we would have recovered a lot more from the Bush disaster if we had really 'spent' $840 billion on the 'Stimulus'.