Flip Pidot puts the answer in a handy graphic (which you’re going to have to go see yourself). In inflation-adjusted dollars, the “infrastructure/energy” portion of the Generational Theft Act of 2009 (arguably the “stimulative” part of the act) ranks below the Louisiana Purchase, the Moon Race, the first 4 years of the New Deal, and the Iraq War (the other governmental spending on the chart), while each of the remaining 3 components; “wealth redistribution”, “states/human capital” (i.e. government spending money on itself), and interest on the borrowing, each outstrip everything except the New Deal and the Iraq War.
Bonus item – Using the same numbers from Bianco Research (via The Big Picture) that Flip used, the total $1.2 trillion cost of the Generational Theft Act is greater than any “single-event” outlay other than World War II in inflation-adjusted terms.
Revisions/extensions (7:17 pm 1/30/2009) - Link to Flip’s post fixed, but I won’t guarantee success in getting through. All I can say is, “Try, try again.”
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I think a lot of people have difficulty understanding how much a trillion dollars is. An example I like to use is that a trillion dollars laid end-to-end would reach from the Earth to the Sun and back again. Or if you spent it at a rate of $1 per second it would take you about 36,000 years to spend it all.