Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
The problem with the stimulus package is that after nearly 40 years since someone more liberal than Obama was in the White House, there was a lot of pent-up demand for some oddball pet projects that the Congressional Dems threw out there. Cash for Clunkers comes to mind. The direct money into state budgets was a fairly good idea as it kept state programs afloat that the states were in no position to fund given the recession (and also kept property taxes in line). But the only other part of the stimulus package should have been infrastructure. That universal access to broadband got such short shrift is really astonishing. Most important economic tool in the new economy that could have helped a lot of rural areas somehow got almost totally ignored.
Not a lot of political support in rural areas for the people who were writing the stimulus checks. The stimulus was such a mess simply because Pelosi and Co. used it for special interests as much as possible. Have we already forgotten the famous turtle underpass?