School construction is out. Tax cuts are in. And the House and Senate are about to approve a $789 stimulus package to try to get the economy going.

The tax cuts - which respected economists say do nothing to stimulate the economy - were thrown in to get the support of three Senate Republicans. Without their votes, the Senate couldn't have passed the bill.

We'll learn more about it in the coming days. But at first glance, there are things to praise and things to worry about.

Certainly something had to be done. There are people in real pain, and the hope is that this infusion of money will accomplish something.

But Congress and the president could have used this crisis to head us sharply in new directions - in renewable energy, for instance. They seem to have frittered away that opportunity, focusing instead on saving existing jobs in existing sectors. Obama may be able to push for new initiatives, but like the stimulus package, they'll be expensive. We may find, four years from now, that this was an opportunity lost.

Equally important in turning around the economy is stabilizing the financial sector. There, we're more nervous. We can't figure out why Obama has put people like Tim Geithner in charge. The bank bailout plan "is not a plan that fixes Wall Street," writes American Prospect's Robert Kuttner. "It is a plan that rebuilds it using the very profit-hungry traders and exotic financial instruments that caused the crisis in the first place."

Yesterday's Maureen Dowd column contained this disturbing info: "Geithner won an internal battle with David Axelrod and other Obama aides who wanted to impose pay caps on every employee at institutions taking the bailout and set stricter guidelines on how federal money is spent. Geithner prevailed over those who wanted to kick out negligent bank executives and wipe out shareholders at institutions receiving aid."