before I can make any assessment on the stim bill, i'd need to see a list of all of its goals, then how many of them were achieved.
I consider the Iraq war to be a success. We got saddam out, got the dollar back to their oil, got bases, etc. Did we achieve every goal for teh war? Goodness no! It took years longer than expected, with way more casualties. it's still a WIN, even if it was only 60% or 80% of the goals desired, in way longer.
I think the stim bill may be the same way. The dollar is safe, the banks are still in business. Job losses have reversed since it passed. We're in the POSITIVE job growth now. Sure, the white house didn't get the UE numbers it desired, so maybe the bill is only an 80% success. Still, if we're going to call iraq a win even though it took 6 years instead of 6 months, or because it might have cost a trillion instead of being funded by oil revenues... even being 6 years and a trillion bucks off, it's still a SUCCESS.