Stimulus spreadsheet?

March 2, 2009 8:14 AM

How did the WSJ put together this breakdown of the stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act)? They cite the CBO as their source but the only CBO breakdown I can find is much less detailed. Where can I get a breakdown of the bill that lists each item in the bill individually and where all the items add up to $787.2 billion, the CBO estimate of the bill's total impact on the deficit? Thanks.
posted by otio to Law & Government (5 answers total)

Not sure how far down you actually want to go, but here's an analysis by U.S. Budget Watch with a line-item breakout. The ">Google spreadsheet linked from the StimulusWiki goes into far greater detail.
posted by longdaysjourney at 8:27 AM on March 2, 2009

Bleagh - here's the right link for the Google Spreadsheet.
posted by longdaysjourney at 8:28 AM on March 2, 2009

To answer the "how" portion of the question: I occasionally have to do this with other government budgets and spending decisions. You can usually find a high level analysis pretty easily (CBO, in this case). There are also third parties that do nothing but government spending analysis, so you can get a deeper level there. A lot of it also comes from knowing where money has been spent in the past, how the large chunks break down into smaller pieces, and extrapolating from there. It's not quick and it's not easy. I'm in awe of my coworkers who know government spending so well they can do some of this work without having to look up specific programs and items.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 9:36 AM on March 2, 2009

Response by poster: It's not quick and it's not easy.

I was afraid of that.
posted by otio at 10:47 AM on March 2, 2009

Stimulus Watch: Keeping an Eye on Economic Recovery Spending might be helpful.
posted by psyche7 at 12:20 PM on March 2, 2009