Veronique de Rugy fires back at the critics of her study showing that if you’re a Donk, then Barry is your sugar daddy:
…Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has suggested that we control for the money spent in state capitals, since by design the stimulus bill funnels a lot of cash to agencies that are likely to be in state capitals (although it’s important to note that our original report dealt with money actually spent versus stimulus dollars allocated as a way to try to account for this). Other suggestions were incorporated as well.
As it turns out, when controlling for state capitals and a host of other potentially relevant variables, we find that the original findings still hold. We learn a few other things, too:
First, how and where the money is spent doesn’t seem to be related to unemployment or decline in employment in the district where it is spent.
Second, the district’s party affiliation matters in where the money is spent. (We still don’t know how much it matters compared to other factors.) The average Democratic district receives 81 percent more than the average Republican district. Even after taking out the money spent through state capitals, the average Democratic district receives at least 30 percent more than the average Republican district.
Here’s a link to her updated report. Have at it, if you’ve a mind, liberals…or wait until the DNC puts out your new talking points, whatever seems best.
It is clear, however, that Obama and Co dispensed the money with a mind towards ensuring that their side got the biggest slice of the pie. This is really indisputable and, also, very natural when you’re dealing with a governing class which (a) believes their supporters have unjustly suffered and (b) is given to using taxpayer money to purchase electoral support. The most surprising thing possible would have been for the money to have been used fairly – its just not in the nature of Democrats to do that sort of thing.
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