By David Kestenbaum

Researchers at Edmunds.com say YES.

The White House says NO. (And claims the Edmunds folks are using Martian economics. Read the White House Council of Economic Advisors analysis here.)

Edmunds replies that their numbers are earth-bound.

The darker the state, the greater percentage of schools marked for an upgrade in the stimulus bill.

Click for full graphic, with key.

 

More charts based on White House data about the impact of the stimulus on each state.

One category of stimulus spending is aimed at improving public schools. I divided the numbers provided in the White House report by the total number of schools in each state, which is provided by the Department of Education.

You see a wide variation from place to place. For example, 3.4 of schools in Minnesota and 18.4 percent of schools in New York will be provided with the "the labs, classrooms and libraries" necessary to ensure competitiveness in the twenty-first century.

The darker the state, the more residents are eligible for the American Opportunity Tax Credit.

Click for full graphic, with key.

 

More charts based on White House data about the impact of the stimulus on each state.

Let's start with the percentage of families made eligible for a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. I divided the numbers presented in the White House release by the number of family households indicated on a spreadsheet produced by the Census Bureau. Here, you see a lot of difference among various parts of the country. Nine percent of families in the District of Columbia stood to benefit, compared to only three percent in New Hampshire.

Continue reading "What's It Worth To You, II" >

The darker the state, the more jobs from the stimulus package.

Click for full graphic, with numbers.

 

Last week, the White House released preliminary statistics detailing the impact of the stimulus on each state. The data came as raw numbers, such as the number of schools to be modernized. I wanted to see how big an impact each measure promised to have on each state: for example while 23 schools might be substantial in Wyoming, it would hardly be noticed in California. I've posted the data set and visualization on ManyEyes -- click below for analysis and static graphics of the five state-level figures presented in the report.

Continue reading "What's It Worth To You?" >

Looking for cash, say, to cover a stagflation bet? The Cato Institute's WashingtonWatch.com blog has you covered with a new contest: identify the best or worst use of the money and win $100. Planet Money will also take your opinions on the bill, but all we can offer is gratitude.

The bailout has plunged the federal government into relatively uncharted legal territory and, as a result, it has had to look outside its ranks for help. In particular, the Treasury Department has retained legal and accounting advisers to draw up contracts and monitor the disbursement of funds.

Continue reading "The Treasury-Industrial Complex" >

Twitter listener @joshzele writes:

$650m for Digital-to-Analog converter boxes? That's in the stimulus plan? When did TV become a critical public service?

Continue reading "$650 Million For Digital TV" >

One of the areas expected to get as much as $20 billion under the federal government's planned economic stimulus package is electronic medical records.

The current stimulus bill says the funds "will update and computerize our health care system to cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes and help reduce health care costs by billions of dollars each year."

Digitizing the nation's medical records is a great idea. It will save lives and reduce skyrocketing health care costs. It may even get a few doctors swimming in paperwork to reconsider putting down their stethoscopes for good. But if it's not done well, or done too quickly, it can cause more problems than it cures.

Continue reading "An Old Lesson: Modernize Health Care Records With Care" >

Along with the $825 billion stimulus bill, Congressional sponsors added an "Economic Analysis in Support of Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act." It includes this note:

"[P]rices for steel rebar plunged 36 percent from August to December. Prices of asphalt have dropped even more in most parts of the country. Falling demand and rising capacity is also putting downward pressure on cement. With so much excess capacity from falling private demand, we should expect a major push on infrastructure to help stabilize prices but not to raise them in general. Nevertheless, out of concern that some capacity bottlenecks could develop, the Committee has been somewhat more restrained in infrastructure investments than some have urged."

In short, lawmakers say they dialed back on building because they're worried about getting enough raw material. Already, folks on the construction side have complained that the stimulus plan won't do enough -- a connection, perhaps? After the jump, the full section on deflation.

Continue reading "Not Enough Stuff?" >

Welcome to Inauguration Day, kids. Come help us unpack the stimulus bill, will ya? Here's the press release, the full report, and the economic analysis.

Let's start with a cris de coeur, courtesy of Brandon M:

For energy, there has been talk of using wind power to pump water back into a dam when there is excess power and using the stored water in the dam to provide power when the wind isn't blowing. Much has been said of how much our power grid needs to be upgraded. Our internet standard trails behind foreign countries because we have an oligopoly of data providers (phone, cable, and satellite) where others place the data infrastructure under the government control and allow lots of competitors to offer there services over those lines. We've seen presentations of a shared electric car system, similar to the zip cars, to handle the charging/parking issue. When will we see real change?

How much highway can you buy for $30 billion? How many homes does $6 billion weatherize? What would $140 billion do to fix our schools?

We're going to unpack a couple parts of the stimulus package the democrats have put forth. Take a look and give us some guidance. Where should we dig?

Here's the press release, the full report, and the economic analysis. All this comes from the House Appropriations Committee.

I thought EVERYBODY was getting a piece of the financial stimulus. (even us).

Well, according to Congressional Quarterly, defense contractors are not so lucky.

To be sure, some defense companies had sought to obtain weapons funding in the stimulus bill, particularly after the Obama transition team asked military acquisition offices for information on projects that might create jobs, said lobbyists who requested anonymity.

"In December, defense lobbyists went nuts," one said.

But it became clear that weapons projects were not what the Obama team was looking for, they said. And justifying such spending was difficult after the increases of recent years.

...

the Aerospace Industries Association has spent nearly $2 million on ads to convince decision makers that the defense sector plays an important role in the economy. The group is under no illusions that the rate of growth in defense spending since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks can be sustained, but it hopes to limit the cutbacks.