Another aspect of that is that taking that money (which comes from taxes as you mentioned or from inflation) reduces the bottom line of businesses across the US

Another aspect of that is that taking that money (which comes from taxes as you mentioned or from inflation) reduces the bottom line of businesses across the USA. The taxes directly hit the bottom line, but the taxes and the inflation boost the cost of goods, making consumers buy less, and production more expensive. The thing is, job creation comes from business expansion. So, taking the money in the first place hurts the economy. This sort of investment scheme is not the worst use of $2B from the US government, I'm sure they spend that much on wasted paperclips each year. But even with this relatively wise investment, it will never return to the economy enough growth to replace the damage that taking it out did in the first place. I think this is an important economic point that people miss because they don't really think about where government money comes from, and the impact it has. Further, they are investing this money in "disadvantaged areas" and "areas like clean energy", which is to say politically connected or politically influential areas. Political correctness is not a good investment strategy and will produce lower returns. Anyway, a company looking at expansion will look at the capital and resource requirements for that expansion. If the marginal cost of a new employee is around $10,000 (a rough estimate on my part) then that $2B will directly prevent the creation (and in the case of marginal businesses that are forced to lay people off, cause the destruction of...) around 200,000 jobs. 200,000 jobs may not sound like that much, but the next year the economy will miss out on the economic effects of having 200,000 more people employed for a year, producing more goods and profit for their employers and buying more goods themselves. That activity creates jobs which are also lost. It is a compounding effect, and that is just assuming the program only lasts one year and costs only $2B. (I think for the federal government to distribute $2B in investment money, the programs will cost $4B or $6B when all is said and done.)