This about sums it up

Via DeLong: Matthew Yglesias's Theory of the Obama Administration in 2010: Excessive Reliance on the Second Derivative. Long story short: the Obama administration saw that it's intervention had stopped the employment free-fall of and concluded that it would just turn itself around. Wrong. That was the point at which more help was needed to reverse the damage. I would add that the Obama administration also under-estimated the extent of the damage that was already done when they came into office.

In which, if you read between the lines, I foam at the mouth

Half a stimulus is better than none « Multiplier Effect

Care: effective and equitable job creation

Nancy Folbre references some research my colleagues at Levy Economics Institute and I have done: Improving Home-Care Services, Creating Jobs - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com. I'll wait while you go read her post . . .
Long story short from our research : $50 billion would provide early childhood education for the entire country, employ more people than $50 billion in infrastructure construction spending, and provide those jobs to people from the lowest income families. More effective and more equitable than most other spending in last year's too-small stimulus package.