found a link to recovery.gov. Below is a copy of the table found here: http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=AZ
| Top Congressional Districts | Jobs | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 4th congressional district | 10,034.8 | $1,772,338,156 |
| 7th congressional district | 735.3 | $394,080,874 |
| 1st congressional district | 909.4 | $217,071,244 |
| 5th congressional district | 137 | $145,399,210 |
| 6th congressional district | 81 | $89,641,748 |
| 2nd congressional district | 135.3 | $86,400,240 |
| 8th congressional district | 106.2 | $50,624,970 |
| 3rd congressional district | 86 | $42,422,493 |
| 86th congressional district | 0 | $34,412,126 |
| 40th congressional district | 0 | $1,280,838 |
| 9th congressional district | 2 | $905,475 |
| 15th congressional district | 30 | $761,420 |
| 00 congressional district | 8 | $599,061 |
| 78th congressional district | 0 | $490,482 |
| 38th congressional district | 5 | $391,139 |
| 11th congressional district | 5 | $288,020 |
| 29th congressional district | 0 | $148,482 |
| 36th congressional district | 0 | $81,071 |
| 50th congressional district | 0 | $70,000 |
| 52nd congressional district | 7 | $59,414 |
| 25th congressional district | 0 | $57,194 |
| 18th congressional district | 1 | $32,878 |
Sure enough there it is. $761,420 spent to create 30 jobs in a place that doesn't exist. That got me to thinking. After a quick glance I noted that there were more than 9 entries on the table. More than just the 15th Congressional District got the funding and jobs. There were some that got money, but created no jobs. $34,412,126 is a lot to spend on zero jobs, and it is in the 86th District. I might not have immediately thought there is no 15th District, but 86? I know for sure
there are not 86 Districts in Arizona. They haven't had that big of a population boom since I left the state. The other thing that I really didn't like was the discrepancy in dollars spent between the real Districts. Why did the 4th get 1.7 Billion Dollars in stimulus money while the others got significantly less. It received 62.5% of total stimulus money to the state. Theoretically the Congressional Districts should be more or less the same as far as population goes. With 8 real districts each one should get around 12.5% of the total for the state. The 7th (in second place) is the only one close to that. I know this is oversimplifying the whole thing, but in my humble opinion that is the way it should be. Predictably enough when I looked up the 4th District, I found this little tidbit about it being "the most friendly territory for Democrats in the state"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona%27s_4th_congressional_district#Competitiveness). Transparency and Change were a big buzz word during the campaign. It looks like the whole bipartisan divide isn't changing, but now it is more clearly seen. Now I am just trying to figure out if this is some sort of gross data entry error, a gross accounting error, or an example
of how some sort of shady back-room deal gets put on the books.
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