When President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus was passed last February, one of the biggest knocks against it was that it would take too long to be spent out since it was heavily weighted towards infrastructure projects which can take a long time to get going.

Now, five months on, the big rap on the stimulus is (are you sitting down?) that it's been too slow to flow into the economy.

Obviously, none of this should be a surprise. Economists warned about this.

Also, five months isn't very much time considering the size and complexity of the U.S. economy and the depth of the economic challenges facing the nation from the credit freeze to foreclosures and falling prices in the housing market.

Still, economics is one thing, politics another. The continually rising unemployment numbers give Republicans and angle of attack against Obama and they're using it.

It seems to matter little that economists know that unemployment typically is a lagging indicator meaning that it doesn't immediately go up at the start of a recession and doesn't immediately go down when recessions end.

 

At a congressional oversight hearing today on the stimulus, Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said the unemployment data proved the stimulus has failed:

I believe that the discredited Keynesian economic theory behind the effort is misguided, and I am convinced that it won't work. Unfortunately, recent economic data has validated my opposition. The U.S. economy lost 433 (sic, he omitted million) net jobs in June, bringing the unemployment rate to 9.5 percent. These job losses come on the heels of other declining economic indicators that bring total American job loss since President Obama took office to 2.6 million.

NPR's Mara Liasson reported on All Things Considered today on the impact the failure of the stimulus to already turn the economy around is having on Obama politically.

An excerpt:

LIASSON: President Obama is in a difficult position. He has to defend his $787 billion economic stimulus package at at time when there are few visible signs that its had an effect.

Unemployment is at 9.5% even though the white house back in January predicted that with the stimulus bill it would only rise to about 8% .

The White House had to justify its response to the recession again this week after Vice President Biden, with his trademark candor, said this to Abc's George Stephanopoulous.

BIDEN: We and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures of most of the blue chip indexes out there.

LIASSON: So from overseas, the president engaged in a familiar ritual —walking back the vice president's words. Here he is on NBC:

OBAMA: Rather than say 'misread', we had incomplete information. In some areas, we're seeing the economic engine turn. But what we always knew was that (a) this recession was going to be deep; (b) it was going to last for a while.

LIASSON: But if the administration did misread the problem, does that mean it misdesigned the solution? The stimulus bill has been criticized for not being stimulative enough. for not getting more money into peoples pockets — faster. After all only 14% of the $787 billion has been spent so far.

But the president told ABC yesterday that even if his diagnosis was wrong he still believes the medicine was exactly right.

What's important to remember is that even though the Obama stimulus, according to many economists, wasn't constructed to get the biggest bang for the buck, it's probably still too early to call it a failure.