The economy may be slowly recovering, but that's in spite of -- not because of -- the recent orgy of federal spending. Two economics professors, Tim Conley and Bill Dupor, concluded this month that the $800 billion stimulus package wiped out a million private-sector jobs, destroying a net 550,000 jobs . (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus package, created 450,000 government jobs, partly offsetting the million private-sector jobs it wiped out.) “The majority of destroyed/forestalled jobs were in growth industries,” they say.