Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, they disagree. And I don't say that lightly, because this is probably one area of economics where economists most disagree. We actually agree on a lot, but this is one big area of disagreement. And this disagreement goes back well over 70 or 80 years. The argument in favor of the stimulus plan is, look, the private sector - people and businesses - aren't spending money. There are vital resources out there. People are unemployed. Factories are not being used. So let's have the federal government step in, spend money, stimulate the economy, so-called prime the pump, jump start the economy, whatever cliché you want to use. That will create confidence in the economy. That will create confidence among consumers and businesses. They will be able to spend more on their own and that will bring the economy back. The argument against this occurs on a couple of levels. One, it says that, look, government has to get its money from somewhere, and a large amount of the additional money government will spend will simply be borrowed from the private sector. So you're transferring money that would have been spent by the private sector to the government sector and you're just saying, Peter won't spend as much, but Paul will. So the net effect to the overall economy will be zero or close to zero. Also, another line of attack says that it takes time for these projects to gear up, so you have to worry about the timing of the new spending. How much of the new spending will occur while the recession is still here? How much will occur when the economy is in recovery? You'll have to choose your side here because economists simply don't agree on whether the stimulus plan will work."