As bleak reports regarding the nation’s economic climate continue to circulate, a Washington-based think tank announced this week Wisconsin could get as much as $8.87 billion from the stimulus bill that passed the House Wednesday.

Sean Gibbons, a spokesperson for Center for American Progress, said the amount of money slated for each state was based off population figures.

“We took the overall amount of money being made available and apportioned most of that money on a per-capita basis,” Gibbons said. “This is an investment by the American people, by the representatives, to rebuild confidence while we have some real challenges before us.”

Gibbons added the numbers are based off the bill that passed the House as well as President Barack Obama’s proposal and will likely be revised as the legislation moves through the Senate in the coming weeks.

The figures released by the center are just some of the numbers moving throughout the state regarding the amount of money Wisconsin could potentially receive, although most estimates have been considerably smaller.

Despite the variety of estimations, Gov. Jim Doyle’s spokesperson Lee Sensenbrenner said his office is not guessing on the figures and will instead wait to see what emerges as the bill travels through Congress.

Should the stimulus package pass the Senate and be signed into law by Obama, any federal funds received will be distributed throughout the state by the recently created Wisconsin Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

Doyle addressed some of the projects he would like to spend the federal funds on during his annual State of the State address Wednesday night.

“We can repair our roads and bridges. We can raise the next buildings for groundbreaking research,” Doyle said. “We can fix crumbling schools, find new sources of energy and clean our water.”

Despite the interest surrounding the stimulus package, legislators from both parties acknowledge most of the estimated figures will not solve all the problems currently facing the state.

“It will not solve the state’s deficit,” Doyle said Wednesday night.

Kelly Flury, an aid to Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit, reiterated Doyle’s statement, saying that while the package will help, it won’t solve everything.

Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, a member of the Joint Committee on Finance, agreed, saying after seeing the variety of estimates regarding the funds the state is slated to receive, the governor will still have a huge deficit to fix.

Vos added with so much money potentially coming into the state, legislators need to spend wisely.

“Our job is to make sure [the money] doesn’t get wasted, and we need to create jobs,” Vos said. “I’m not optimistic that it will do anything more than create government jobs.”