The $787 billion stimulus bill was supposed to be the key ingredient to get our economy back on track. Predictions were dire about what would happen if lawmakers did not agree to spend all that money. The Obama administration breathlessly warned that unemployment could get as high as 9 percent without the stimulus to jolt spending by consumers, businesses and, most of all, government. With the stimulus, the administration said, unemployment would stay below 8 percent and soon drop to more tolerable levels.

So with almost zero Republican support, the Democrat majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives passed the stimulus.

It didn't work.

Not only has the stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8 percent, but joblessness is now worse than what the administration predicted it would be without the stimulus. Unemployment since the stimulus stands at 9.5 percent. And in the face of those horrible numbers, the Obama administration is admitting that joblessness is going to get worse.

"White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said last week that the president expects the nation will reach 10 percent unemployment within the next few months," The Associated Press reported.

So the money is gone, and the jobs are disappearing with it.

That prompted House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, to ask a painfully obvious question: "After all of this spending, after all of this borrowing from China, the Middle East, our children and our grandchildren, where are the jobs?"

That, alas, is the $787 billion question.