@Sners You don’t think additional money for the US geological service (which is really what Governor Jindal was referring to when he snidely dismissed the idea of ‘volcano monitoring’) would create jobs? Really? Who builds the instruments used to monitor volcanoes? And who places those instruments? And who actually monitors and analyzes the data that comes from those instruments? And furthermore, where do those people, who go out the hundreds of active volcanoes in north America, stay at night and where do they eat during the day?
Just because you think that something sounds silly, doesn’t mean it doesn’t create jobs. The point of the stimulus package was to drive resources into as many sectors of the economy as quickly as possible. A geologist job is a job. An volcano analyst job is a job. Having more of these people, with paying jobs, who travel around the country spending money wherever they go, also creates jobs.
And The_unconservative_one is right. The stimulus bill also included what amounts to the largest single tax cut in American history.