So far, the government has spent about $110.8 billion, committed about $309 billion, and has about $256.3 billion that has been neither committed nor spent from the $787 billion authorized earlier this year. Much of the money spent so far has gone to grants to the states and tax cuts for individuals.

Obama administration officials have insisted in the face of criticism from Republicans that the stimulus has kept the economy from falling into an even deeper abyss.

But the NFIB says the first stimulus sent money to the wrong places. It’s concerned that health care reform and greenhouse-gas legislation pending before Congress could cause costs to rise for small businesses at a time they can least afford it. The current stimulus misses the target for creating jobs. And the ideas floated for the stealth second stimulus also miss the mark.

“Looking at the first stimulus it wasn’t targeted at all at small business, and it wasn’t effective,” said Bill Rys of the NFIB. “I think they’re talking about a second stimulus because the first one’s been completely ineffective. It’s not getting to the job creators.”

But he’s not that impressed with the ideas he’s heard so far. They don’t do enough to help small-business owners short on customers and short on cash flow. He would like to see the federal government institute a payroll-tax holiday, which would put money directly in the pockets of both businesses and employees.

“If we’re going to be talking about a stimulus, a payroll-tax holiday is the way to go. It’s immediate,” Rys said.

As for the granddaddy of all the business lobbying organizations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is busy with a plan of its own to help stimulate the economy. The Chamber supported the original stimulus. But now it’s getting ready to launch what it calls an unprecedented campaign to promote free-market ideas and create jobs.

The organization, after months of research, plans to launch Wednesday a multimillion-dollar, multimedia, multiyear grassroots campaign. “Since we announced plans for the campaign in June, we’ve been holding listening sessions with small-business owners, heads of state, and local chambers, Fortune 500 CEOs, heads of trade associations, [and] Washington political and press types, and we’ve built a one-of-a-kind, far-reaching campaign to promote free enterprise,” Tita Freeman, the Chamber’s vice president of communications and strategy, told Politico’s Mike Allen.

The goal of the campaign is to create 20 million jobs, making up for the 7 million lost in the recession and adding another 13 million. It’s kind of vague just how a marketing campaign will lead to all those jobs. But if it does, the Chamber almost certainly will beat any of the ideas the politicians are talking about.

Just don’t call it a stimulus.