Friday, December 18, 2009


Report: Democratic districts received nearly twice the amount of stimulus funds as GOP districts
...Additionally, Mercatus found that stimulus funds were not disbursed geographically with any special regard for low-income Americans. “We find no correlation between economic indicators and stimulus funding. Preliminary results find no statistically significant effect of unemployment, median income or mean income on stimulus funds allocation,” said the report.

The Mercatus Center analysis also found that Democratic congressional districts received on average almost double the funding of Republican congressional districts. Republican congressional districts received on average $232 million in stimulus funds while Democratic districts received $439 million on average.

“We found that there is a correlation [relating to the partisanship of congressional districts],” de Rugy said. Her regression analysis found that stimulus funds are expected to decrease by 24.19 percent if a district is represented by a Republican....

...Finally, the Mercatus analysis shows that a majority of the funds allocated went to public rather than private entities -- nearly $88 billion to $69 billion. While some of the money given to public entities may eventually filter down to the private sector, it's much less transparent how money given to public entities is spurring economic growth and job creation.