What the Democrats have done is write down every single item on their liberal wish list, append dollar amounts next to the items seemingly at random, and call it "stimulus." The president wanted the bill to be free of pet projects and include business tax cuts. But no one told Pelosi's appopriators. They are using the current troubles to push through a decades-old domestic policy agenda. The spending--$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $400 million for global warming studies--demonstrates that the bill has no overarching logic.

Which makes it a major disappointment. Almost everybody agrees that the economy is a mess and that fiscal policy might help tidy things up. But $6.2 billion for "home weatherization"?

The problem with the House plan is that it is ineffective even on Keynesian grounds. Keynes said that, once monetary policy has reached its limit, fiscal policy must take priority. In other words, when interest rates have effectively reached zero, governments must lower taxes and increase spending to rebalance the economy. But the House bill is half-baked Keynes. And it will fail.

It will fail because it is imperfectly designed. A well-designed stimulus meets three criteria. It's large. It's fast. You like what you get out of it. But the Democratic plan is none of these. When you look closely at the House bill, you realize that it's not so big after all. Nor will the money be spent quickly. And the things we get out of it? Small fry.