Map: How Much Stimulus Spending Did Your District Receive?

Back in 2009, conservative commentators were quick to cry 'Pork!' as the House and Senate debated the $800 billion stimulus bill known as ARRA - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A year later the Cato Institute argued that the funding was targeted at counties that strongly supported Obama in 2008, claiming that "the counties that did the most to put Obama in the White House received a taxpayer-funded thank you in return."

But a new study released today at the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity finds no evidence that political influence or graft played a role in how stimulus dollars flowed to congressional districts. The paper, by economists at Columbia University, UMass-Amherst, and the University of Maryland, concludes that "for the most part, politicians did not exploit their individual positions of power within the Congress to grab funds."
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