“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works….”  With these words in his inaugural, President Obama spoke of a new post-partisan era in politics.  He vowed to judge programs on effectiveness, not ideology.

It turns out, he’ll soon get a chance to prove he meant those words.  Congress is making quick work of a stimulus package.  Let’s hope the president spends more time reviewing it than Congress did creating it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23brooks.html

The stimulus plan is a grab bag of pork spending on everything from home weatherization to contraceptives.  And even the good parts of the spending aren’t that great.  According to David Brooks in today’s New York Times:

“…of the $30 billion devoted to highway spending, only $4 billion will be spent in the next two years. Less than $3 billion of the $18.5 billion for renewable energy and less than half the financing for school construction will be spent by 2011.”

I don’t see how the president can sign this bill if he meant what he said on Tuesday.  His test is effectiveness.  And this stimulus plan fails the test.  He should veto it and tell Congress to start over.  Now that would be real change!

-Randy Hill