Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

Conservative blogs are making a big deal out of this study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University which shows that Democratic districts have received more stimulus funds than Republican districts. Frankly, it seems like a dog bites man story to me. First of all, Republicans voted against the stimulus so crying crocodile tears now about not getting their fair share of the money seems like sour grapes. Second, does it really still surprise anyone that the party in the majority disperses largesse among its own first? If you are suprised by this it is time for you to get out more and join the rest of us here in the real world.

The important conclusion of the study is that the funds are being dispersed based on political considerations rather than economic ones. That isn’t a  surprise to those of us who opposed the stimulus spending bill; that was part of our argument against it all along. The rejoinder to that from Democrats is that it doesn’t matter; spending is stimulus no matter what it is for or for whom it is spent. I happen to think that is a pretty poor argument, but I guess if that’s all you’ve got, well, you go with it. Anyway, here are a few highlights of the study with my comments in italics:

• A total of 56,399 contracts and grants totaling $157,028,362,536 were awarded in this first quarter for which Recovery.gov reports are available. The number of jobs claimed as created or saved is 638,826.54—an average of $245,807.51 per job. Those are some expensive jobs especially when we know that some of them are fiction and another chunk are only temporary. Efficiency isn’t a feature.
• The total amount awarded to public entities (such as municipalities and state agencies) is $87,865,102,272. However, some of this money may have ultimately found its way to private subgrantees or subcontractors. The total amount awarded to private contractors and grantees is $69,163,260,264. While public entities received 45.696 percent of the number of all awards, these awards constituted over half of the dollars awarded (55.955 percent). Well, I am shocked. Imagine Democrats favoring public entities over private. Shocked I tell you.
• There are 177 districts represented by Republicans and 259 represented by Democrats.  On average, Democratic districts received 1.6 times more awards than Republican ones. The average number of awards per Republican district is 94, while the average number of awards per Democratic district is 152.Democratic districts also received 1.89 times more stimulus dollars than Republican districts. The average dollars awarded per Republican district is $232,047,857, while the average dollars awarded per Democratic district is $439,200,100. In total, Democratic districts received 73.47 percent of the total stimulus funds awarded. In terms of numbers of awards, Republican districts received 29.77 percent of the total, while Democratic districts received 70.22 percent. As I said above, dog bites man.
• Furthermore, we find that there is no effect on the amount of stimulus funds allocated based on whether a district voted for John McCain or Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. While $101,483,870,504 have been allocated to congressional districts that voted for President Obama (or 65.5 percent of the total amount allocated), $53,341, 425,974 (or 34.5 percent) have been allocated to congressional districts that voted for McCain. It should be noted, however, that there were many more congressional districts that voted for Obama than voted for McCain. President Obama won 55.6 percent of congressional districts, and McCain won 44.4 percent of these districts. Maybe if they hadn’t rushed it through so fast they could have skewed this to Obama districts too, but time was of the essence. It had to be passed before anyone figured out that the economy wasn’t collapsing like a black hole.
• As noted earlier, the average congressional district received $355,103,891. In contrast, the average leadership district (defined as a district where the representative is part of the majority or minority House political leadership or is a chairman or ranking member of a committee) received $309,183,100. Again, Pelosi and Reid just didn’t have enough time to do anything about this. I have no doubt they would have if they could.
• Based on the data, we looked at whether the allocations were affected by how high- or how low-income the MSA was. Based on the total MSA, 96.4 percent of the stimulus funds were allocated to the highest income MSAs and only 3.61 percent to the lowest quintile. However, using per capita expenditures in MSAs, the highest quintile received $403 per person while the lowest quintile received $1,028 per person. (See Table 2.) This is the kind of thing that really ought to piss people off. Wealthier districts got more money than poorer districts. I don’t care what your political affiliation is, that just isn’t right.
• We found no correlation between economic indicators and stimulus funding. Preliminary results find no effect of unemployment, median income, or mean income on stimulus funds allocation.Then, we checked for the correlation between political indicators and stimulus funding. With the exception of the district’s party affiliation (whether the district’s representation was Republican or Democrat), we found no effect of political variables on stimulus funds allocation. This is the real scandal of the stimulus. The funds are just being spent willy nilly with no forethought about how the funds should be allocated. Everyone repeat after me: government is bad at allocating capital. Government is bad at allocating capital. Government is bad at allocating capital. Bad I say. Bad. Bad. Bad.

The study doesn’t tell us anything that common sense didn’t tell us long before the stimulus bill was passed. The stimulus bill was a political document, not an economic one. If you believed differently you were either incredibly naive or willingly blind to reality.