Last January, Kevin A. Hassett held a conference at AEI titled "Responding to the Recession." Hassett and others on AEI's economic team examined stimulus options before the congressional debate, warning of the perils of rushing a poorly designed stimulus package through Congress. The eye-popping $787 billion package that Congress passed and President Obama signed in February proved to be seriously flawed in ways that AEI scholars predicted. Michael Barone noted that about one-third of the funds were directed at state and local governments with the policy aim of maintaining public services and aid. But, as Barone notes, the political aim was to "maintain public-sector jobs--and the flow of union dues to the public employees unions that represent almost 40 percent of public-sector workers." And, as Alex Brill pointed out, many of the "shovel ready" projects still are not ready, tied up in red tape. Christina Hoff Sommers wrote that even though the vast majority of jobs lost in this recession were held by men, feminists hijacked the stimulus, getting the administration to direct funds toward female-dominated industries. Finally, in AEI's Education Stimulus Watch, Andrew Smarick wrote that the education stimulus funds are not being spent on reform. There are better ways to accelerate job creation than those in the legislation, a subject the AEI economic team will turn to this year.

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