Democrats Need More Stimulation

Democratic districts received twice as much stimulus money as their Republican counterparts, according to a new study by Reason columnist and contributing editor Veronique de Rugy. Of the $157 billion distributed so far, Democrats are taking the fat man's share of the fries for their constituents. The average amount of stimulus cash flowing into a Democratic district: $439 million. Republican districts take home only half as much: $232 million.

These numbers aren't accounted for by the different demographics of Democratic vs. Republican districts either:

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.

Read a quick treatment of the study by Mark Hemingway at the Washington Examiner here.

Comments

[ed]

To the victor go the spoils. Besides, Republicans are the Party of No?, remember? No vote, no loot. Payback we can believe in.

[JB]

Obama is nothing but a thug.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Things will balance out come election time, when some of the majority of unspent funds goes to swing districts to buy votes.

Thank God for the stimulus, that saved us.

[Kyle Jordan]

"Democrats are taking the fat man's share of the fries for their constituents."

As a fat man who dearly loves fries, I find this highly offensive. When with friends, I buy my own fries.

[John Thacker]

The numbers might be somewhat accounted for by Democratic districts having more government jobs already, and the money mostly flowing to government. Not that that makes it much better.

[?]

Preliminary results find no statistically significant effect of [...] median income or mean income on stimulus funds allocation

That's slightly surprising, actually.

In recent years, lefties have taken to gloating (when they're not lying) about how Big Money?institutional, regional, and personal?is all on their side.

You'd probably have to run the numbers against net worth (and other more stable indicators), not income, to make that correlation show up. So they didn't?

[John]

It is hysterical to hear liberals pontificating about the virtues of Keynesian economics in the run up to the stimulus. There was nothing Keynesian about the stimulus. Keynes, whatever his faults, at least had a coherent idea about how to stimulate a failing economy (hint tax cuts were part of the equation). A Keynesian stumulus consists of government projects that put money directly in people's pockets either through tax cuts or public works projects (it should also be noted that later in life Keynes admitted that public works projects were a really inefficient way to stimulate the economy and you were better off just sending people checks or cutting their taxes). The Pelosi Reid stimulus was nothing of the sort. A large percentage of the money went to the states to prop up medicare programs and save the states from having to cut public service union wages. It was nothing but a theft program for Democratic interests, as this study bears out. If there was any "Keynesian stimulus" on the table, it was the Republican proposal to give an income tax holiday.

It is funny how the media and partisians on either side will latch onto a word that once actually meant something and throw it around for any purpose with just enough information to be dangerous and thus rendering the term meaningless. This was the fate of the term "Keynesian" during the stimulus debate.

[Isaac Bartram]

The flip side of Keynesianism are the tax increases and budget surpluses that you run in boom times too.

For about the last seventy years or so the country's been on an all stimulus-all deficit spending binge full time.

Aside from a couple of the
Truman years and the Eisehower Administrations the only other presidents who have seemed the least bit anxious about deficit spending were Gerry Ford and Jimmy Carter.

Congress has always pretty much acted like a bunch of teenagers that just got given some whiskey and the keys to the family car.

[John]

Clinton was. The late 1990s is a good example of the flip side of Keynesianism you are talking about. Indeed, the surplus allowed us to run a deficit and avoid a serious recession after 9-11 and the tech bubble burst.

The problem is that there is no free lunch. We got out of our serious recession in 2001 by inflating an asset bubble and bought ourselves a much worse one in 2009. We would have been better off taking our medicine in 2001 and avoiding the bubble altogether and (gasp) actually building prosperity on something besides bullshit.

But all the smart people (Greenspan, Krugman, Paulson) just knew that what we really needed was a new asset bubble to replace the old one common sense and values be damned.

[robc]

No surplus. Came close, but debt increased every year.

[John]

That is true only if you actually think Social Security is actuall an account, which its not. They say it is, but it is not and can't be. Even if the government didn't touch the social security surplus, it couldn't save the money without buying assets and socializing large sections of the economy. In the 1990s, the government took in a lot more money than it spent and the public debt went down. That is a surplus, social security nonsense or not.

[robc]

I know why its the way it is, but I go by the #s the treasury publishes.

However, if we really, really want to do it right, we use GAAP rules and it was nowhere near a surplus.

[John]

But the GAAP rules really are not applicable to governments. Governments make their own rules and can reduciate their commitments without consiquence. So I can see why they don't use them. That said, it is a moot point. They will never use GAAP because no politician will ever admit to the full cost of a program and be willing to put it down in this year's budget. Never gonna happen.

[swillfredo pareto]

Governments make their own rules and can reduciate their commitments without consiquence.

And a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man. John for Christmas I would love it if someone got you spell check because as fun as you are to read it is torture sometimes.

[T]

Leave him alone. John's a perfectly cromulent speller.

[John C. Randolph]

Also, it only came close because Clinton was deadlocked with a Republican congress, which thwarted his spendthrift ambitions.

-jcr

[Isaac Bartram]

I'll give Clinton credit but some of it has to go to the Republican Congeress.

With Democrats in charge of Congress the Clinton Administration would've ended up looking like the Bush fils regime or, even worse, like Carter's.

[John]

True. Had the Republicans not taken back Congress in 1994, we would never have seen those surpluses in the late 90s. Of course if Dole had won in 96, we wouldn't have seen them either. Neither party is capable of running a surplus if given unchecked power. The temptation to steal is just too great.

[Isaac Bartram]

I agree, especially the part about Dole.

The 95-01 Clinton years are a model for advocates of divided government.

[John C. Randolph]

It's the best we can hope for under the current "Ruling Party with two faces" system.

-jcr

[Tulpa]

During the mid/late 90s we had a respite from deficit spending, but that doesn't affect your main point.

[Geotpf]

Keynes, whatever his faults, at least had a coherent idea about how to stimulate a failing economy (hint tax cuts were part of the equation).

Hint: Tax cuts were part of the stimulus as well.

[John]

Oh really? Just what were those? And how big were they in comparison to the entire bill?

[John]

And tax credits to buy golf carts doesn't count.

[Ray uh Butlers]

Tit for Tat, I say. Nobody needs to get anything, but Republican districts have been winning this one for years.

[John]

Fair enough. But if your entire purpose is just the steal money for your chronies, at least admit as much and stop claiming the stimulus is going to save the economy.

[Ray uh Butlers]

Since when do criminals in congress behave honestly? If it wasn't the stimulus, there'd be some other excuse. There always is.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

So the Democrats' much-ballyhooed "change" is to...imitate the Republicans?

[Ray uh Butlers]

Look that way, yes.

[Jordan]

Prove it.

[Ray uh Butlers]

Please refer to all newspapers published in the last 12 years.

[Paul]

I don't see why this is news. It lines up with facts we already know:

Democrats are the party of the wealthy. As such, they live in wealthier districts, therefore, their total stimulus dollars would in fact be higher.

Democrats are the party of corporate welfare. Therefore, who's corporate districts are going to receive the most welfare?

[Episiarch]

Republicrats, Demopublicans, who can tell the difference? They both send money to their bitches when in power.

TEAM RED TEAM BLUE RAH RAH RAH

[SugarFree]

You got to give a ho a taste of the good life once and a while. A little sugar to help keep them in line. All beatin' and no butterin' makes for an unproductive ho.

[Kyle Jordan]

Pay attention young ones. Reverend Nutrasweet is doling out the Pimpology.

[P Brooks]

Democratic districts received twice as much stimulus money as their Republican counterparts

A bizarre coincidence; pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

[vince]

This is just the Chicago patronage system brought to DC and distributed nationally.

Really, did anyone not see this coming?

[John]

You have to ask. There were a whole group of "Obamacons" out there who thought that Obama was a centrist and practicioner of good government. They mostly consisted of guilty white urbanites who both wanted to vote for a black president and feel a part of the "moment of history".

[T]

feel a part of the "moment of history"

Fuck that. I'm a footnote to history and all I have to show for it is scars.

[John]

No shit. People who claim to want to be "a part of history" are some of the biggest fools on earth. People who have never grown past the mentality of a 20 year old. Being a part of history is generally a bitch. My grand parents were a part of history living through the dust bowl and depression. I think they would have preferred to avoid it. My father was a part of history in Vietnam. Being a part of "history" usually means living through turbulant and rotten times. Give me peace, prosperity and boredom any day.

[Johnny Longtorso]

May you live in interesting times.
-- Chinese curse

[John Tagliaferro]

So the Republicans really don't try to get as much pork as Democrats?

[John]

I don't know. Go back and look. But even if they do, does that excuse this or make the stimulus any better? Since when does, "they did it to" excuse anything?

[John Tagliaferro]

You are taking my comment more seriously than I.

[John]

Sorry. I am sure the Republicans try to steal as much as the Dems. they just are not as successful being in the minority.

[Geotpf]

Maybe since they were against the stimulus they didn't try to get money for their districts?

[Johnny Longtorso]

*snort*

[John]

I sure the Dems would have gladly told their chronies to do without in the name of fairness.

[HeadTater]

Need more stimulation? Legalize prostitution.

[PM770]

What about the districts that don't actually exist? How much on average did they get?

[Cling Free]

+1

[Obey the Fist]

Would it be possible for us to get a source for this information that is not funded and analyzed by anti-Obama, free-market conservatives and published by a heavily slanted DC newsrag?

No, no, I'm sorry. This is "Reason Magazine." I must have been thinking of "Reason" in the true sense of the word.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Drink?

[Zeb]

Definitely.

[John C. Randolph]

Where do you think the data came from, smart ass? It's from the government's own bragging about what they're spending and where.

-jcr

[Russ 2000]

What about the stimulus that went to the districts that don't exist? Are they D or R?

[Pro Libertate]

I wish the madness would stop. It's awful watching us take the train off the cliff, with no one doing much to stop it.

[Engineer]

The Democratic districts NEED more free shit than the Republican districts.

[Engineer]

Sorry, "free" should be in quotation marks.

[John C. Randolph]

FDR did the same thing. What's old is new again.

-jcr

[Bill Clinton]

I can tell ya a thing'r two about stimulation...

[Butch]

I would sincerely hope that this does not surprise anyone. This is exactly the way the funds are distributed in Chicago, where the Prez honed his political chops. Wards get money based on the way they voted. Democratic? No problem. Repuiblican? No money.

[P Brooks]

No, no, I'm sorry. This is "Reason Magazine." I must have been thinking of "Reason" in the true sense of the word.

Well, well, well- would you look at the time!

I believe I will, Barkeep!