Why Wasn’t The Stimulus Spending Targeted To States With The Most Unemployment?
BillShrink.com has a state-by-state breakdown of how the so-called “stimulus” spending was spread around the country. What I found interesting was that in a per-capita breakdown, my home state of North Dakota got more than 46 other states. North Dakota got $216.56 for every man, woman and child in the state. More than all but Mississippi, Alaska and Utah.
That doesn’t make any sense given that North Dakota, as of December of 2009, has a 4.3% unemployment rate, a 5.2% unemployment rate at the time the “stimulus” was passed, and routinely has the lowest unemployment in the nation.
Meanwhile, the state that got the least in per-capita “stimulus” spending, Florida at $193.51 in per-capita spending. Florida currently has an 11% unemployment rate, and was at 9.5% at the time of the “stimulus” bill’s passage.
Apologists for the “stimulus” deficit spending tell us that government spending creates economic activity which in turn creates jobs and prosperity. If that’s true, why wasn’t this spending targeted to the states with the worst employment problems?
Why is North Dakota, which thanks to being an energy export state can claim to be skipping the recession, in the top five for stimulus funds received while someplace like Florida, which has a bad-and-getting-worse unemployment picture, at the bottom?
After all, if the politicians actually believed their own words when they tell us that all this spending actually stimulates the economy, wouldn’t the opposite be true? Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics
