I presumed that, in the previous post, comparing the percentage of arts money spent per state to the state's percentage of the population would give a clue into whether or not the stimulus spending was in proportion to population. Ian Thal, in the comments, asked about the numbers per capita, and I assumed it would reflect the same imbalance.
Using the Wall Street Journal's helpful widget (which I wish I'd found last night), I looked up the amount of money dispersed to the arts in the Stimulus Bill:
Of course, they reflect two different pools of numbers; this diagram above is the stimulus bill; what I was looking at last night was a break down of just the music education. Also, the WSJ doesn't show their work (the raw numbers it is taken from).
When I have a little bit more time, I'm going to play around with the raw numbers at the NEA site and see if the per capita really does match the evenness above, and if it is in fact individual disciplines that vary from state to state. Also, I'll see if I can track down the numbers for the NEA's regular funding, not the stimulus bill, and see whether the stimulus bill is representative of NEA spending in general.
I made the mistake of using a data set that confirmed what I already believed to be true about the NEA. My apologies.
