I think that once he was isolated and his effectiveness to act was removed, that killing him was no longer a priority or should it have been. The War in Afghanistan was never totally about getting OBL, it was about undercutting support and removing bases of operations for Al Queda, and the War on Terror in general was about removing that from other terrorist organizations, not just about AQ. Further, while many consider the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to have been a waste of money, consider that without them having open bases to train in and that they now expend so much of their resources there instead of attacking us directly, then both were a success in diverting greater danger away from our borders. We all hate to see the reports of dead military members over there, but it is the military's job to be the shield between those that would attack us and our civilians. If anyone is going to attack us, the military should be the target, it's part of their job. Every gun, bomb or suicide bomber that they use there is one less that they could be using in our malls, shopping centers, schools or other civilian targets inside the US.
If we didn't spend money to keep the attacks focused there and on our military, but instead they were freer to attack our civilians and business, what affect would that have had on the economy? People want to constantly bring up the costs of the war, but never consider what the cost to us may be if we didn't have them. This whole concept that if we left them alone, they would leave us alone fails because we did leave them alone before and they attacked and blew up embassies, bombed a US Naval Vessel, and finally carried out the 9/11 attacks.
Also, the government can rarely directly control the economy, efforts to do so will only cause greater economic distress. To affect the economy, the government should focus on making the business environment in America competitive and workable instead of hamstringing it. I did not disagree with Obama's concept of his stimulus, only how he went about it. He would of had much greater success if he had had the government directly hire the unemployed to work on projects. Instead of welfare, put those people to work, use the money currently going to welfare to fund it initially. If properly structured, we could have a almost self sustaining program instead of the burdensome mess that is welfare in America today and our economy would be a hell of a lot better off because of it.