If it's true at a state level...

So, Harvard researchers have discovered that when a state or region gets one of their federal representatives on a powerful committee two things happen concurrently:

1) Federal money flows generously to the area.
2) Private businesses in the same area see reduced sales, cut back their spending, and shrink payrolls--"the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent".

My question is: if this happens locally when federal money flows, can we extrapolate that to a national level? When the federal taps open, how big a hit do private businesses take? Especially when it has one big compounding factor: states that see increases in money flow, do not usually see proportionate increases in taxes--that money comes from loser states. But, if you look on the federal level, then the tax increases do matter, since the money is coming out of the same pot everyone's taxes go into.

Next question: who is really surprised by this? That's not a rhetorical question. It is, actually, a rather important question.