USA Today Misleads on Politics of Stimulus Spending
To Disraeli's famous line that "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics," you can add a fourth: USA Today. In an article suggestively titled, "Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08," the paper implied the White House steered stimulus funds to counties that voted for the President. But as USA Today acknowledges, the distribution of the $17 billion in local funding (a small fraction of the overall $787 billion recovery package) is "guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation." More glaring still, USA Today not only omits any mention of the stimulus windfall reaped by many states which voted for John McCain, it ignores the steady one-way flow of tax dollars and earmarks annually spreading the wealth from Washington to the reddest of red states.
For his part, USA Today's Brad Heath offers a coy analysis which hints at and then backs away from allegations of political bias by the Obama White House in allocating the sliver of total stimulus funds going to local government projects:
Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.
The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.
While Heath admits that "Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work," he provides no detail on the historical per capita allocation of federal aid to more urban counties with commensurately larger infrastructure and social services needs. Only in the final paragraph does USA Today note:
The imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau.
More importantly, the data show that year in, year out, red state socialism is alive and well. That is, blue state taxpayers persistently subsidize services for their red state brethren.
As a 2007 analysis (above) of 2005 federal spending per tax dollar received by state shows, the reddest states generally reaped the most green. Eight of the top 10 beneficiaries of federal largesse voted for John McCain for President. Unsurprisingly, all 10 states at the bottom of the list - those whose outflow of tax revenue is funding programs elsewhere in the country - all voted for Barack Obama in 2008.
The numbers for Sarah Palin's Alaska are particularly telling. While Palin initially declared she would reject $288 million (31%) of the $931 million funds allocated for schools, energy assistance and social services, her state led the nation in earmark dollars received per capita in the omnibus spending bill passed in March. (Alaskans got almost $210 per person in earmarks, while Californians got $16 and New Yorkers $13 in comparison.) Overall, Alaska ranks third in the federal gravy train, taking in $1.84 from Washington for each dollar sent there.
Bobby Jindal's Louisiana also gets a pretty sweet deal from taxpayers around the United States. Jindal's home rates #4 in pocketing federal spending per tax dollar contributed, just behind Haley Barbour's Mississippi (#2) and Palin's Alaska.
For all of his bloviating, stimulus opponent and lovelorn South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford ultimately accepted a $2.8 billion bonanza for his economically devastated Palmetto State. Sanford's home away from Buenos Aires already receives $1.35 from DC for every tax dollar paid.
And as the Wall Street Journal reported just last week, "Some of the states worst hit by the recession are getting far less federal economic-stimulus money per person than states faring better." In many cases, the winners wear red uniforms, while the losers went blue in the last election:
Nevada, where unemployment stood at about 10% when the plan was passed, is getting $541 for each resident from the stimulus money allocated so far, a Wall Street Journal analysis found. Wyoming, where the 3.9% jobless rate was the lowest in the country in February, is getting $1,074 per person.
Florida, North Carolina and Oregon are among the other states with relatively low per-capita payouts, despite battling double-digit unemployment. North Dakota and South Dakota, meanwhile, are also receiving large quantities of stimulus money relative to their small populations -- even while unemployment remains about half the national average.
As the Journal noted, "the Obama administration says the stimulus was always as much about investments in infrastructure as it was about targeting short-term unemployment." And again, the urgent need to quickly disperse the recovery funds meant "many of the formulas are decades old, and only a handful are based on the most up-to-date measures of economic distress."
(The Journal also rightly details that different states benefit from different types of stimulus spending. For a state-by-state breakdown of social and infrastructure spending by state, check out the WSJ's interactive maps and tables.)
None of the above is to suggest that there is anything untoward or inappropriate in the underwriting of red states by blue ones. On the contrary. After all, many of these Republican states are home both to key defense contractors and military bases which help ensure U.S. national security. Just as important, most Americans nationwide want to provide the funding and resources for the education, health care and anti-poverty programs their red state brethren badly need - and deserve. (In May, the Washington Post rightly noted it would be blue state residents funding health care in an article titled, "A Red State Booster Shot.")
And that's what makes USA Today's implication that Obama-backing counties are disproportionately benefiting from federal stimulus dollars so misguided - and disappointing.
UPDATE 1: Meanwhile, the New York Times revealed that "the 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money," adding "it is clear that the stimulus program will continue that pattern of spending disproportionately on rural areas."
UPDATE 2: As ThinkProgress notes, Fox News predictably cited the USA Today piece as evidence for its false claim that stimulus spending is being steered to areas that backed Obama.
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Probably that ought to say "famously attributed to" Disraeli. :)
Posted by Barry Schwartz on July 9, 2009 1:52 PMThinkProgress had a bunch of stuff about how Hannity and Faux News are trying to make hay out of the USA Today article.
Posted by G_Man on July 10, 2009 9:29 AMI didn't Thunk USA Today was a real newspaper... isn't it a promotional handout in hotels for traveling businesspeople?
Under The LobsterScope
Posted by btchakir on July 10, 2009 10:25 AM