ItâÄôs hard to believe lawmakers are actually talking about a second stimulus package already, but the extremely premature and wasteful idea is already on the table. Only 11 percent of the $787 billion economic stimulus package that was approved in February has been spent, according to CBS News, so how can anyone determine whether it is a success or failure at this point? Sure, it hasnâÄôt kept unemployment below 8.5 percent or created immediate jobs like the Obama administration said it would, but does that mean hundreds of billions more should be spent to try again? According to The Wall Street Journal, $56 billion has been transferred from the federal government to state governments as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, but by this time last year, the tax rebates provided by the Bush administration had injected about $80 billion into the economy. At that time, economists believed the rebates were affecting the economy in a positive but unexceptional way. Obviously, $56 billion is having even less of an impact, and the little that has been spent is already under severe scrutiny. Another analysis conducted by The New York Times indicates that âÄúof 5,274 transportation projects approved so far âĦ the 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money.âÄù It is painfully obvious that the first stimulus package has not proven very effective for the struggling economy âÄî but in all fairness, it has to actually be spent to have that kind of an impact. This editorial was originally published in the Central Florida Future at the University of Central Florida. Please send comments to [email protected]