Democrats and Republicans used the five-year anniversary of the 2009 stimulus law to debate the measure’s effectiveness, a feud that highlights how the deep divisions over the connection between federal spending and economic growth continue to challenge policy makers.

President Barack Obama, in one his first acts in the White House, signed the Democratic-supported American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was a more than $800 billion combination of new spending measures and tax cuts that Democrats believed would slow the country’s economic slide following the financial crisis. Almost all Republicans voted against the law.