The fundamental failing of the Keynesian stimulustheory is that it neatly ignores the presence of financial markets, which have as their primary purpose transferring savings from those who do not currently need to spend to those who need the funds, either to spend or to invest.
And the main achievement of his first year was the so-called stimulus, which was based on the same Keynesian theory that a nation can become richer by switching money from one pocket to another.
In theory, he and Congress could couple a bigger stimulus with more ambitious deficit-reduction by reforming entitlements (such as health care and pensions for the elderly) and taxes.
The theory that any and all government spending is "stimulus" has been put to the test over the last five years, and the result has been the weakest recovery in 75 years and trillion-dollar annual deficits.