Feb. 13--WHAT -- exactly -- is in that $789 billion stimulus bill?

As both House and Senate rushed Thursday to give it final approval by Saturday, major news organizations had only secondhand reports of its contents. It's a good bet that only a few members of Congress will completely understand it before they send it to President Obama's desk.

Haste and lack of scrutiny invariably lead to major flaws in spending bills. The argument for speed here is a good one: The faltering American economy needs a large injection of money and jobs right now, if not three months ago. But an injection shouldn't be watered down when there's only so much room in the syringe.

The big question about this package is not whether it's buying too much stimulus but whether it will deliver too little.

America now faces the ordeal Japan went through in the 1990s. After a real estate and stock bubble burst there, Japan slid into a decade of economic decline. Many economists -- especially in Japan -- say the government failed to turn things around because its attempts at stimulus were underfunded and poorly targeted. The idea is to shock and awe the economy.

If all $789 billion in Congress' package were spent on genuine shock-and-awe stuff, it might just do the trick. But one thing we do know about the bill is that a lot of it simply isn't stimulus spending.

Some of its tax-relief provisions offer no immediate impact and perhaps little long-term impact. For example, the bill would exempt roughly 24 million upper-middle-class Americans from the alternative minimum tax. That can be justified as a matter of fairness: The AMT hasn't been adjusted for inflation, and it's been hitting people it was never intended to hit.

But fairness alone doesn't create jobs, stop foreclosures or spur purchasing. The AMT provision accounts for $70 billion of the package -- nearly 10 percent. That's money that might otherwise be pumped quickly and directly into the economy.

The same goes for some of the spending measures Democrats have pushed. Some won't start delivering the goods for years. Some are long-term investments in research or a new "green" economy. Nearly all promise to produce benefits eventually, but Eventually is pretty much the opposite of Shock and Awe.

Would that every penny of this bill were targeted at today's economy; recovery would make it easier for tomorrow's economy to fund longer-term priorities.

Criticism may be moot at this point, given the speed at which this package is being ramrodded through Congress. Real deliberation over the bill's less stimulating provisions has been pre-empted by the rush. Americans can only cross their fingers and hope there's enough juice in this thing to get some wheels rolling again.

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