Reward friends, punish enemies. It’s so much easier when you’ve got your hands on the lever:
(Federal) 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…
“During the appropriations process, you’re not surprised to see the Democrats are getting more money, but in this case a lot of the money we’re looking at is going through HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development], or Department of Education, Department of Transportation etc. and they’re following a formula,” she said. “But the correlation exists, and not only does it exist — when you look at how much money we’re talking about, it’s a pretty big deal.”
Only if the independents pay attention.
To be fair, I doubt it would be different other than in polarity if the GOP had the whip hand.
But, with all the connections to corrupt ‘community organizing’ groups that the current majority party has, it is suspicious.
Just wait until 2010. Something like 70% of the “stimulus money” hasn’t been spent. You know the “stimulus” otherwise known as “Obama’s Stash”. Wait to see how it gets divided.
Joe,
I have to respectfully disagree with your comments about it being the same if the GOP was in charge. The media would light up a such a shit storm if the Republicans did this, that it would make Tiger Woods look like an altar boy.
If it makes you feel any better (not that it will), the exact same thing happened here in the Great White Up. Except in our case, the vast majority went to Conservative ridings.
“Only if the Independents pay attention”
That’s the WHOLE point. Americans have the attention-span of a gnat with ADD. Over HALF of the $ the Feds have sent the City of New Orleans hasn’t been spent YET. When one long-time pol was queried as to why this was so he replied: “Welllll….the longer it sits around unspent in various banks and multiple accounts, the harder it is to keep track of it all…..”
As political philosopher Lily Tomlin says: “I TRY to be cynical, but it’s hard to keep up.”
Virgil, and we all know the the politicians plan on our limited attention span. Hopefully, hopefully it will be different next year. Wish I had an icon for crossed fingers.
Hey, it is Christmas Season, I can hope for miracles can’t I?
Regards,