Experts debate effects of U.S. stimulus

The federal stimulus turns a year old later this month, and while the biggest government spending plan since the New Deal seems to have slowed the hemorrhaging of jobs and calmed some consumer fears experts say it wasn't a miracle cure.

"Everybody knows the stimulus has a depressing effect," says Edward Prescott, economics professor and Nobel laureate. He notes the increase in public debt and a loss in large-scale private investment. Prescott thinks the measure was poorly designed and too expensive.

"I think it was just pork barrel, to buy off the special interests," he says.