To suggest Obama's stimulus plan failed is like suggesting that if we had started the backup quarterback our team would have won the Superbowl. Its an opinion about as cemented in bedrock as Nostradamus. I'm sure you know the saying about a room full of economists. That and the entire United States Navy is escorting Obama to India, then they're all going to water ski from the back of an aircraft carrier because Fox said so.
The reason i can say the stimulus didnt work is not because of the unemployment rate. it is because of how inefficiently the capital was deployed. At 600k per job we would have been better off handing 16 million people 50k. If the goal is to stimulate demand, then there is no other way to look at the stimulus other than being a failure. When you read stories about dropping a million dollars to teach africans to wash their dick can you possibly argue with the fact that the capital was deployed in the least efficient way possible? A story like this means that not only are we wasting money, but we are also spending the money overseas, does this make sense to you? I remember another story where 400k was dropped to study ants in africa and study their behavioural pattern. Im sorry but when we are currently bleeding out the ass, how can you possibly justify stuff like this? Im not talking about science in general, if the money was used to study cancer here at home, i would have no problem with it. For the time being though we need to put off the studying of ants, or the other stupid pointless studies so that we can survive as a nation. These are only 2 examples but there are hundreds of stories like this within the stimulus.