On the one-year anniversary of its passage, President Barack Obama made strong claims for the success of the $787 billion stimulus package, or "recovery act," as the White House prefers to call it.

The act, the president said, averted a second Great Depression, saved the jobs of 2 million Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and is on track to save or create another 1.5 million jobs. And it was instrumental in reversing the course of the economy, from shrinking by over 6 percent in the first quarter of 2009 to expanding nearly 6 percent in the fourth quarter.

Statistically, the economy is on the road to recovery, and, as Obama spoke, there were positive reports on industrial production and home construction. But, as the president pointed out, "it doesn't feel like much of a recovery."

And it surely doesn't feel like much of one in Cobb County or the rest of this state.

That's because of the huge damage the recession has inflicted on the economy - 8 million jobs lost since its onset at the end of 2007. Obama took office during what now looks like the low point of the recession and, not even president for a month, felt empowered to act boldly. Failure to act, he said, "would have led to catastrophe."

Some economists say he didn't act boldly enough, that the stimulus should have been much bigger.

On the other hand, there are many who feel that his stimulus plan itself comes close to fitting the definition of "catastrophe," at least in the budgetary sense. It loads a trillion dollars in debt onto the shoulders not only of today's taxpayers, but on those of our children and grandchildren.

"Not only has the stimulus not brought us job growth as advertised, but it has put America in a perilous budget situation," warns U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell). "Every single dollar of the stimulus was borrowed, and the administration has absolutely no plan to pay it back or the interest payments it has spawned."

While the stimulus bill may have played at least some role in the embryonic recovery, can the bill be judged as a success or failure? Have we really gotten anything for all that money? The answer is: It's too soon to tell.

In an analysis of stimulus spending, The Wall Street Journal notes that only one-third of the $787 billion was spent in the first year of the program, and much of that was on quick fixes like payments to states and local governments to avert layoffs of teachers and emergency responders. So it was not creating jobs, just saving some, temporarily. It was taxing the private sector to preserve jobs in the public sector.

Still to come, according to the Journal figures, is the bulk, $160 billion versus the $20 billion spent last year, of the infrastructure money - roads and bridges, rail lines, water projects, what the Obama team thinks of as "stimulus." Some of those projects are justifiable, but too many fall under the label of "pork."

That new burst of spending may boost gross domestic product this year, but indications on the stimulus bill's one-year anniversary are that it was money poorly spent. And that's even more reason to be wary of the sequel now being hatched at the White House and on Capital Hill.