YES VIRGINIA, THE STIMULUS WORKED, PART III

This won't make any difference to the hardcore rubes but it should help the Dems in this Fall's elections.

UPDATE 2-Stimulus raised GDP by up to 4.2 pct in Q1 2010 -CBO

WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) - The massive U.S. stimulus package put up to 2.8 million people to work and boosted GDP by up to 4.2 percent in the first three months of 2010, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, as the stimulus package is formally known, lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage point and 1.5 percentage points in the first quarter of 2010, CBO estimated.

That translates to somewhere between 1.2 million and 2.8 million jobs, CBO said.

The Recovery Act boosted GDP by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent, CBO said.

Its impact will peak later this year before tailing off in 2011 and 2012, CBO said.