Surprise! Money from the stimulus bill is much more likely to end up in the hands of people living in Democratic districts than Republican.

What's that? You're shocked, shocked I say to discover this? Veronique de Rugy of NRO dug into the mystery so you don't have to:

Controlling for the percentage of the district employed in the construction industry, a proxy for the vulnerability to recession of a district, I find no statistical correlation for all relevant unemployment indicators and the allocation of funds. This suggests that unemployment is not the factor leading the awards. Also, I found no correlation between other economic indicators, such as income, and stimulus funding.

Second: On average, Democratic districts received one-and-a-half times as many awards as Republican ones. Democratic districts also received two-and-a-half times more stimulus dollars than Republican districts ($122,127,186,509 vs. $46,139,592,268). Republican districts also received smaller awards on average. (The average dollars awarded per Republican district is $260,675,663, while the average dollars awarded per Democratic district is $471,533,539.)

Of course, there are more Democratic districts than Republican districts in the Congress. So I checked for the correlation between political indicators and stimulus funding. I found that with the exception of the district's party affiliation (whether the district's representation was Republican or Democratic), political variables had no effect on stimulus funds allocation.

De Rugy rightly points out that she can't account entirely for the statistical relevance of party affiliation but that the data strongly suggests a political element in the granting of stim, money contracts.

I'd love to see a study on a comparison between the economic health of areas that received stim money and those that didn't. I'll bet that kind of analysis would show no difference between those who got the pork and those who didn't.