Just Shy of 20 Percent of Stimulus Spent So Far
We updated our Stimulus Progress Bar, which shows total stimulus spending thus far as $63 billion in tax cuts plus $89 billion in direct spending from federal agencies. That’s a total of $152 billion—just shy of 20 percent of the $792 billion authorized by Congress under the Recovery Act.
However, as we noted last week, that spending continues to be spread unevenly among different federal agencies. As our Progress Bar shows, 14 agencies have spent less than 5 percent of the total funding available to them. A handful, including the departments of Energy, Defense and the Interior, have each spent less than 2 percent.
Near the bottom of the list is NASA, which has spent just one-half of 1 percent of the $1 billion appropriated for it by Congress. In fact, more than two-thirds of NASA’s stimulus dollars haven’t been committed to any specific projects yet. We’ve put in a call to the space agency—but there must be some very angry astronauts out there.
Check out our Stimulus Progress Bar for the full picture.
Officials have struggled to spend the nearly $800 billion stimulus package quickly and effectively.
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