Big gamble for the Big O

The signature that President Obama affixed last week to his economic stimulus was hopefully not just ink on paper.

Sure it represented a bit of history as being the first major and costly ”“ $787 billion ”“ spending bill signed by a black president, let alone any president. But it was much more than that.

The signature represented the president”™s affirmation that he has brought change to the White House and the nation.

In his weekly radio address, Obama said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was “a major milestone on our road to recovery.”

“Congress has passed my economic recovery plan, an ambitious plan at a time we badly need it. It will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, ignite spending by business and consumers alike and lay a new foundation for our lasting economic growth and prosperity.”

The legislation represented economic planning, legislative bickering and lobbying, liberal doses of pork and a renewed Republican fortitude to reunify the shell-shocked party through near-unanimous opposition to the package.

“I am pleased to say that after a lively debate full of healthy differences of opinion, we have delivered real and tangible progress for the American people,” Obama said, although Republicans might tend to differ.

In fact, they did.

House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio served up his apprehension and opposition to the package in two separate statements.

The bill “is more costly, is loaded with slow-moving Washington spending, opens the door to scores of pet projects that taxpayers cannot afford, and is not focused on creating more jobs for families and small businesses. Even worse, its authors are trying to take advantage of the crisis in our economy to enact a series of liberal policy proposals that have nothing to do with job creation, such as reversing welfare reform and letting government ration out health care options to America families and seniors.”

A few days later he added: “It”™s a raw deal for American families, providing just $1.10 per day in relief for workers while saddling every family with $9,400 in added debt to pay for special-interest programs and pork-barrel projects.Â It will do little to create jobs, and will do more harm than good to middle-class families and our economy.”

U. S. Sen. and former presidential candidate John McCain labeled the stimulus package “generational theft,” referring to the American children and grandchildren who would have to pay for the federal deficits in future years.

The speed at which $787 billion can enter the U.S. economy will be key to the turnaround.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod told NBC”™s “Meet the Press” that the Obama administration expects 75 percent of the money to be spent within 18 months.

But will that mean a return to normalcy in that time? Of course not.

Speaking with Chris Wallace on the newsman”™s “Fox News Sunday” show, Axelrod said the speed of the package”™s remedies would show “signs of activity very quickly.”

“But it”™s going to take time for that to show up in the statistics. The president has said it”™s likely to get worse before it gets better. It is true that without this program, it could be ”“ it could be much, much worse. And so I don”™t expect the arrow to bend down by the end of the year, but I do expect the rise in unemployment to be retarded by the things that were done.”

So, the stimulus is more a palliative; relieves pain without curing the ailment.

Change has come?

It”™s too early to say.

History, as always, will be the final arbiter.