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The most dead-on assessment of the dilemma is from Evan Horowitz...Horowitz said that, from an economic perspective, this is not the right time for additional stimulus.

“Given the current state of the economy, a delay in ARP spending may be a good thing. Right now, the economy doesn’t need any short-term stimulus,” Horowitz said.

“Six months from now, or perhaps a year, the economy should be in a better position to absorb new government spending – meaning that a slower and more deliberate process will actually make many ARP investments more impactful than they would be right now,”

The economy "doesn't need any short-term stimulus," Horowitz said, adding that inflation and other short-term economic factors would make any spending "risky."

Horowitz said the biggest challenge is that there are probably a dozen proposals for how to spend $1 billion each – far more than is available.

Largely lost in the political shuffle, points out Evan Horowitz, is whether the move makes any sense economically.

"Injecting stimulus this summer compounds all of these problems. It's giving people money to spend when high spending is actually an economic concern, not a virtue," Horowitz said.

Evan Horowitz and WBUR's Steve Brown discuss the implications of the proposed Massachusetts millionaires tax

“Spending this money will be easy. Spending it effectively will not,” said Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University.