Baby's Not Happy About the Stimulus Bill She's Stuck With

The colorful brochure arrived in the mail today titled, “Fighting For Long Island.”  In it Congressman Tim Bishop extols the virtues of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and how much bacon he brought home for the district.  Inside the folder is a map of the 1st Congressional District with callout balloons showing all the locations where stimulus money will land.  On first blush one is tempted to think, good job Congressman!  But then I reached for the calculator.

By the Numbers

If you take the $787 billion and divide it by the 535 members of Congress (425 Congressman and 100 Senators) the stimulus bill works out to $1.47 billion per member.  That’s a lot of dough.  I then took out my calculator and tallied up all the monies on the map that “CONGRESSMAN TIM BISHOP Delivers Economic Recovery Funds To Long Island.”  Just to be sure, I checked my numbers three times and the projects added up to $274 million. That’s not good.  That means that our Congressman brought home less than 19% of his share, which means that a lot more backslapping members of Congress got more than their share.  Throw into the mix that every Republican voted against the bill and probably were not considered too kindly on the receiving end, then we really got short changed.

Money In vs. Money Out

Although there are many people who like to believe that Uncle Sam is really some independently wealthy tycoon who showers his neices and nephews with his largess, the sad reality is that the money all comes from us.  So I wondered how much do we send to the Treasury?

The federal government does a pretty good job of concealing how taxes are broken down by congressional district, which is understandable as accountability at election time can be problematic.  In 2004 the First Congressional District in New York ranked 60th in the nation in average income tax liability per tax return, at $8,310 per return.  What percentile is that?  Let’s see 60 out of 435 comes out to be about the 14th percentile, well above the midpoint.  How much stimulus did our esteemed representative bring home?  Somewhere around the 81st percentile well below the midpoint.  So the bottom line is that our Congressman voted to have his constituents pay a very large share of stimulus money that will go to every other part of the country, while we spend years working off the debt.  Brilliant!

Historically, New York gets about $0.79 from the federal government for every $1 that New Yorkers pay in taxes.  So why do New Yorkers keep overwhelmingly electing Democrats to Congress who love to increase taxes that ultimately end up being sent to other states?  Who are they working for (perhaps themselves)?

The Stimulus Was Really About Jobs

So let’s not get bogged down in costs when it’s jobs we’re really talking about.  After all, passing the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate at 8% instead of 9% without it.  Oops, it’s already at 9.5% and climbing.

Of all the projects identified on the map of the district, one had an actual figure, in bold, stating that it would create 1,000 jobs.  That’s a nice figure, but let’s put it in perspective.  There are about 233,000 people employed in the district. At a 9.5% unemployment rate that would mean about 22,135 jobs have been lost in this recession.  So creating 1,000 jobs equates to about 0.4% employment.  The particular project that was identifed with creating these 1,000 jobs was getting $184.3 million in stimulus money or two-thirds of all the stimulus in the district.  That works out to us spending $187,300 per job created.  Call me a conservative, but somehow I think that if we cut taxes by $184.3 million we would create a lot more than 1,000 jobs.  But what we will have to do is raise taxes to cover the $184.3 million that we are spending to create these jobs which will probably turn right around and kill them or an equivalent number.

What Federalism Means to Me

Here is a “top ten” list of stimulus projects compiled by Senator Tom Coburn [R-OK]:

1. “Free” Stimulus Money Results in Higher Utility Costs for Residents of Perkins, Oklahoma
2. FutureGen: The Stimulus Earmark that Wasn’t, Becomes the Costliest Pork Project in History
3. Little-Used “Shovel-Ready” Bridges in Rural Wisconsin Given Priority Over Widely Used Structurally Deficient Bridges
4. $800,000 for little-used Johnstown, Pennsylvania airport to repave a back-up runway; the “Airport for Nobody” Has Already Received Tens of Millions in Taxpayer dollars
5. $3.4 Million for Wildlife “Eco-Passage” in Florida; Project Still May Take Years to Finish
6. Nevada Non-Profit Gets Weatherization Contract After Being Fired For Same Work
7. Non-Existent Oklahoma Lake in Line for Over $1 Million To Construct a New Guardrail
8. Taxpayers Taken for a Ride: Nearly $10 Million to be Spent to Renovate a Century Old Train Station that Hasn’t Been Used in 30 Years
9. Ten Thousand Dead People Get Stimulus Checks, Social Security Administration Blames a Tough Deadline
10. Town of Union, New York, Encouraged to Spend Money It Did Not Request For a Homelessness Problem It Does Not Have

Now if someone in Florida (No. 5) want to spend $3.4 million for a wildlife “eco-passsage” (i.e., roadway tunnel for turtles)  project, fine.  The good people of Florida can pay for it.  If the people of John Murtha’s district  want to spend $800,000 (No. 4)  to repave a backup runway in Johnstown, fine.  Let those folks pay for it.

If it doesn’t cross a state line, or have a benefit for ALL Americans, it’s not the federal government’s business.  That is my litmus test for federalism.  There is nothing more idiotic than having me pay for your project while you pay for mine.  Because it comes down to a perpetual power grab where those who stay in the government the longest get everyone to pay for their projects (so their constituents will re-elect them) and everyone else gets the bill.  Just ask yourself how many federal functions have been moved to West Virginia (Robert Byrd 50+ years in the Senate).  How much pork goes in to John Murtha’s district (38 years in Congress).

Spinning it for All it’s Worth

So look for the brightly colored brochure from your Congressman crowing about how many stimulus dollars they brought home, but just remember, if your Congressman hasn’t been serving for 20 years, he or she probably got fleeced and you got screwed.  Enjoy holding the bag.