A new study finds pork-barrel spending hurts everyone, even including the appropriator’s home district:
Using data spanning four decades, Harvard researchers measured the effects on local businesses as their local congressmen grew in stature in Washington. The study correctly assumed that when a senator or representative acquired a powerful committee assignment, he would exploit his new position to funnel more money to constituents back home. But the Harvard researchers also assumed — incorrectly, they would discover — that local businesses in a member’s home state or district would benefit from opening up the federal largesse.
“It was an enormous surprise, at least to us, to learn that the average firm in the chairman’s state did not benefit at all from the unanticipated increase in spending,” said Joshua Coval, one of the study’s three principal authors. In fact, the study found that in the years following a congressman acquiring a powerful committee assignment, the average company in his state cut back capital expenditures by 15 percent. . .
Coincidence? Not likely. “The pattern repeats itself across decades and over thousands of firms,” notes the Manhattan Institute’s Steven Malanga in his examination of the study, appropriately headlined “Businesses: Beware Pols Bearing Earmarks.”
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