Stimulus Spending Hits $272 Billion—34 Percent of Total

The Obama administration has spent $179 billion in stimulus funds, according to the latest numbers from Recovery.gov. Combined with an estimated $93 billion in stimulus tax cuts, that means the government has now moved at least $272 billion into the economy, or 34 percent of the total amount approved by Congress last February.

You can find those numbers and more on our Stimulus Progress Bar.

Particularly attentive readers will note that we've been using the $93 billion figure for tax cuts since December, when Recovery.gov posted the number in this report from the Office of Tax Analysis, a unit of the Treasury Department. That report only covered the period through the end of October; some may wonder why we haven't given more recent figures.

The answer is that those numbers aren't available. The Treasury Department hasn't responded to ProPublica's requests for more recent information. We're not the only ones looking for the information; Ed Pound, spokesman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which runs Recovery.gov, told ProPublica that the Treasury Department has yet to provide the board with updated numbers on tax relief.

"We are totally dependent on Treasury to provide this information to us," Pound said. "We've asked Treasury to provide us with the updated information, but we don't have it yet. However, Treasury has informed us that it will get us the information soon, and we plan to post it as soon as this week."

We'll post those updated numbers once they're available. In the meantime, you can check all our stimulus spending figures on our interactive Stimulus Progress Bar.