If, like John Maynard Keynes, you believe that spending, any spending, will revive a flagging economy, the freshly minted, 1000-page American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, calling for $504 billion in deficit-financed spending is for you. Well, not quite. It seems that most of the money will not be spent very soon. About 30 percent won't hit the economy until 2011, and the balance is likely to be tied up in the procurement processes of the federal and state governments at least until well into 2010. After all, the Department of Energy, given $40 billion to spend on green projects, has yet to disburse funds authorized by Congress in 2005 for just that purpose. And the Congressional Budget Office says it could take eight years for the undermanned Commerce Department to spend the $7 billion ticketed for the expansion of broadband access in rural areas.

But never mind such caviling: President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid get $8 billion for high-speed rail projects in their home states, Reid's pork to be used to fund a line linking the moneyed classes of Beverly Hills with the casinos of Las Vegas.

Besides, much of the spending will end up boosting other economies -- subsidies for wind machines will benefit workers in countries in which such machines are manufactured, rather than horny handed toilers here in America. And much of the spending will not create jobs for the unemployed: laid-off auto workers do not have the skills to design the software to manage the "smart grid" that is the apple of greens' eye, and funded in the bill.

If you have not jumped onto the new Keynesian spending bandwagon, but believe with Christina Romer, chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, that tax cuts are more effective in turning an economy around than spending, you should love this bill, with its $286 billion in tax cuts and credits. Well, not quite. True, individuals earning less than $75,000 per year and families earning less than $150,000 will receive credits of $400 and $800, respectively, at a cost of "$116.199 billion over 10 years"; the earned income tax credit for "working families with three of more children" is increased at a cost of $4.663 billion over ten years; and there is more for pensioners, disabled veterans, families of college students and a host of others. If you are not reassured by the precision of the cost estimates you are not alone.

But the tax-cut contingent is doomed to disappointment, although the incentives to business to invest might, just might be of help, especially if demand shows any sign of recovering. Much of the money directed at individuals will be saved or used to pay down credit card balances, not bad things, but not very stimulative. Much will be spent in Wal-Mart, earning Congress the applause of Chinese trainer and t-shirt manufacturers. And much will never be claimed: the specific subsidies for college education are simply too small to have much effect on college enrollments.

If you are a supply-side enthusiast, a reading of this massive bill will add your personal depression to the national recession. Reforms that might increase employment in the oil and gas industries by removing restrictions on drilling are nowhere to be found. Environmental restrictions on the sorts of cars that Americans want to buy remain in place, consistent with Congress' drive to have the begging-bowls-in-hand auto companies produce Schumermobiles, named after the New York senator whose passion is electric vehicles and cars too tiny to need much petrol or to survive in a serious crash. A change in rules that would permit the construction of needed transmission lines without lengthy court reviews initiated by environmental groups remains off the Obama agenda and out of the bill. Most important is the absence of steps to encourage the flow of private capital into toll roads, an alternative to government-financed highways, and into schools free to compete for vouchers, rather than schools built by governments in towns that already have an excess supply of classrooms.