Stimulus Fail, Part 2 (Part 3? 4?)

The Washington Examiner’s Mark Hemingway takes it away with this one:

“A new analysis of the $157 billion distributed by the American Reinvestment and Recovery act, popularly known as the stimulus bill, shows that the funds were distributed without regard for what states were most in need of jobs.”

Later: “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.”

Lastly: “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.”

What a surprise- you mean to tell me the stimulus is failing again? I’m shocked. Really. (Okay, not really.)

This is really bad, for four reasons: first, since a majority of public employees are members of unions, the money is going to sources of voting power for Democrats as opposed to helping all Americans (assuming, of course, it did help, which is doubtful). Secondly, the money was not distributed for efficienty of employment- even though that was its selling point. Thirdly, the money was spread by two departments not Congress, which means either those departments are biased (unlikely) or they are following a formula, as the study Hemingway quotes concludes, and that means the formula is skewed. Fourth, this is almost exactly 20% of the $770 billion approved by Congress, and it’s been ten months or so since it was approved.

George Will called it- “Which suggests that Stimulus II is…primarily designed to save a few dozen jobs — those of Democratic members of the House and Senate.”