I want to be positive about our country’s political system. But try as I might, I just can’t.

The latest of course is the $819 billion stimulus packaged which has made its way past the House and currently up for debate before the Senate. In theory, the idea of pumping a boat load of money into our economy to stimulate spending and job growth sounds good.

In fact, the economist in me thinks it sounds great. In order to get out of a depression, you have to stimulate growth. How do you do that? Spend. And the stimulus plan includes around $550 billion in spending.

On the surface it looks good: $142 billion earmarked for education, $111 billion for healthcare, $90 billion for infrastructure, $54 billion for energy, $13 for housing, etc.

But the devil, as they say, is in the details. There is a difference between spending money where it is needed and quite another to spend it on, say, new sod for the Washington Mall. Or a new Health and Human Services building with a more than $500 million price tag, not to mention more than $200 million in furniture and fittings to go into it. Then there is rekindling an energy project in Illinois previously deemed inefficient. And do we need to spend $335 million on educating people about STDs? That sounds like it would buy a lot of condoms to me.