Economics 13th Edition by James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, Russell Sobel, David Macpherson

Exercise 20

Suppose that in the election campaign of 2010, incumbent Representative Earmark is shown to have proposed and helped to pass twenty programs in her previous term, all of which were funded by the federal government, but delivered benefits only in her district-benefits that were estimated to be only 50 percent as large as the federal costs. How would this charge by her opponent, who provided good evidence of the validity of the charge, be likely to affect Representative Earmark's likelihood of reelection? Explain.