You knew it. You sensed it. Now someone says it. And it's someone who knows politics very well.

Michael Barone on stimulus spending.

Why did districts with state capitals rake in so much money? Because one-third of the stimulus dollars went to state and local governments. The obvious purpose was to shield public employee union members from the economic distress and uncertainty faced by so many Americans in the private sector—to pay off the unions (most of whose members are public employees) which contributed something like $400 million to Democrats in the 2008 cycle.

"In this recession we have lost about 7 million private sector jobs, while job loss in the public sector has been just about zero.