Remember the stimulus?

Remember the stimulus introduced three years ago? Did it produce what it promised? By de Rugy From Mercatus Center;

The Stimulus bill is turning three today. The main argument for enacting a $787 billion stimulus bill was that if government spends money where it is the most needed, that expenditure would create jobs and trigger economic growth. It also assumed that in a good Keynesian fashion, the money would be spent in a timely manner, and would be temporary. Finally, the reason why the returns on government spending would be so high is that the administration assumed that for every dollar spent, the economy would grow potentially by $1.57 (that’s what economists call the multiplier and it was estimated to be 1.57).

The result, we were told would be 3.5 million jobs “created or saved” over the next two years, mostly in the private sector and the promise that unemployment wouldn’t go up beyond 8.25 percent, and that, by the end of 2010, unemployment would have dropped to 7.25 percent. (Full article here).