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Tracking the stimulus
The government's official stimulus tracking website, recovery.gov, relaunched today. The site has lots of new data and some interactive maps to help you see exactly where the money is going, down to the neighborhood level. Texans might be disappointed. And people who live on really bad roads.
The Dallas Morning News mined the data for this:
Texas has received less funding per resident from the stimulus package so far than almost any other state...
... adjusted for population, the state's share of stimulus grants - about $533 per person - ranks 49th among 50 states... Alaskans have received $1,377, while New Yorkers have gotten $873, and Californians netted $677.
Texas governor Rick Perry doesn't seem too worried about it:
"Texans are kind of sick of having Washington take their money in the form of all these taxes and fees and what have you, and then dribbling it back to them - and particularly, dribbling it back to them with all these strings attached," Perry said.
But the newspaper points out that Texas is behind most other states in "no-strings" stimulus as well.
Another trend that's been uncovered -- a lot of bad roads that could be improved, won't be. From USA Today:
Half of the nation's worst roads are in counties that will only get about 20% of the stimulus money allocated by state and federal officials for street repairs. Although the worst roads are in just a handful of counties, they account for 11,000 miles of pavement so rough the government has branded them as unacceptable.
The problem is a byproduct of a stimulus package designed to spend as fast as possible to revive the economy. Many roads are in such bad shape that repairs would take too long and cost too much to qualify for funds, says John Barton, head of engineering for Texas' Department of Transportation.
[Check out the interactive maps on recovery.gov](some interactive maps](http://www.recovery.gov/transparency/pages/home.aspx?ZipCode=90027&) to see where the money is going.
Pro publica is also tracking the stimulus spending in all 50 states.
Nhan, good catch. That was my mistake. I meant .gov but typed .org out of habit, probably. Fixed. But yes, there is a beta site, recovery.org, which is yet another site tracking the stimulus spending. I guess tracking the stimulus is keeping some people employed!
IIRC, the state of Texas spends the least amount per capita of any US state and by a pretty decent margin.
Since most of the stimulus projects requrire local matching funds, it makes some logical sense that Texas would get less in stimulus if they put up less matching funds.
That said, the rest of their logic is flawed. How can it possibly be better for the Federal gvt. to take their money and give it to some other state than to "dribble" it back with strings?
Texas, the rest of America thanks you for your subsidy.
No, I didn't, but I read a couple of conflicting figures on that. I read $9.5 million, $18 million and "up to $18 million." The government released the details of the recovery.gov contract but withheld some of the information, despite a FOIA request. A gov't watchdog group has appealed. Whatever the correct figure, it does come out of the stimulus. Some have complained that it is wasteful spending, while other people complained that the website needed to be revamped so taxpayers could better keep track of the money.
