Never mind the disappointing history of using government spending to jump-start the economy. Although it didn't work in the United States during the 1930s or in Japan during the 1990s, Obama is eager to try again, like Bullwinkle reaching into his hat for a rabbit after getting a lion and a rhinoceros, exclaiming, "This time for sure!"

Even if the mechanics of Obama's trick were sound, his timing would be off. According to the Congressional Budget Office, only a fifth of the spending and tax breaks in the House version of the "stimulus" bill would be felt in 2009. The vast majority of the money, ostensibly intended to jolt the economy out of recession, would be spent after the recession is expected to end.

Spending a trillion bucks is not as easy as it looks, even for a government accustomed to throwing money around. The House bill allocates $9 billion to the expansion of broadband Internet service in rural areas, for instance, but the CBO predicts the resulting projects would not be completed for five to eight years, partly because they would require "technological features that are not widely available today." Similarly, "much of the construction and procurement work associated with highway and transit projects would occur over an extended period of time, leading to federal outlays over several years."

A particular telecommunication or transportation project may or may not be a sound investment, but nothing funded by the "stimulus" package has to meet that test, since spending the money is an end in itself. Hence there is no need to justify the $127 billion for health care and the $150 billion for education (which would more than double the Education Department's annual budget) as proper and wise uses of taxpayer money.

Indeed, pausing to ask whether offering Medicaid to millionaires, giving $1 billion to perpetually penurious Amtrak, devoting $44 billion to "clean energy," or boosting the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts is a good idea would be reckless at a time like this. "When it comes to rebuilding our economy," Obama warned just before the House approved the pseudo-stimulus bill, "we don't have a moment to spare." Acting responsibly, in other words, would be irresponsible.