Innovative ways to stimulate the economy: Hold a national lottery

This is just one of the Innovative Ways to Stimulate the Economy suggested by DailyFinance contributors. See them all.

Here's how the stimulus money flows -- a flood reaches federal agencies, which in turn send a river of money to state and local government entities, which transfer a creek of cash to project contractors, who pay out a dribble of this largess to its workers. If the goal is to stimulate the economy by getting those bucks circulating, why not bypass the bureaucracy and give the loot to those who spend it most freely, the American public?