They call it “stimulus” legislation, but the economic measures racing through Congress would devote tens of billions of dollars to causes that have little to do with jolting the country out of recession.

There’s $345 million for Agriculture Department computers, $650 million for TV converter boxes, $15 billion for college scholarships — worthy, perhaps, but not likely to put many Americans back to work quickly.

Yes, there are many billions of dollars in “ready-to-go” job-creating projects in President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus bill. But there are also plenty of items that are just unfinished business for Congress’ old bulls.

An $800 billion-plus package, it turns out, gives lawmakers plenty of opportunities to rid themselves of nagging headaches left over from the days when running up the government’s $10 trillion-plus debt was a bigger concern.

There’s $1 billion to deal with Census problems and $88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building next year. The Senate would devote $2.1 billion to pay off a looming shortfall in public housing accounts, $870 million to combat the flu and $400 million to slow the spread HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia.

But nothing is in the legislation by accident. By including in the Senate stimulus bill such far-ranging ideas as $40 million to convert the way health statistics are collected — from paper to an electronic system — lawmakers are able to thin out their in-boxes, even if they aren’t doing much to create jobs.

There’s also $380 million in the Senate bill for a rainy day fund for the Women, Infants and Children program that delivers healthful food to the poor. WIC got a $1 billion infusion last fall.

At the same time, putting items in the stimulus bill that really should be handled in annual appropriations bills creates more room in the latter for pet project and other programs.

Part of the reason so much non-stimulus spending has made it into the stimulus bill is that there are only so many traditional jobs-heavy public works projects that can get started quickly. As it is, most of the money in the bill for roadbuilding, water projects and mass transit probably won’t be spent until the economy has turned around and is back on a recovery path.

For example, just one-third of $30 billion proposed by the House for highway construction would reach the economy in the next year and a half, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats are going ahead with Obama’s $500 tax credit for most workers and $1,000 for couples even though there’s wide agreement that last year’s rebate checks weren’t effective in sparking recovery.

Defenders of the package said that once experts determined it would take $800 billion to start to pull the country out of recession and emphasized the urgency, details took on less importance.

If the reader would like to step back into the posts of Info Ink they will find that I have not been a big supporter of any of the so called stimulus bills or bailout or whatever you wanted call them.  The first was hand outs for Repubs and Wall Street, the second is hand outs for Dems and pet projects.  If they want to stimulate the economy then flush the crap and do a bill with NOTHING but parts that will stimulate the economy now and in the long run.  This bill is a joke and a waste of time and will lead to nothing good!