Alaskans tend to live with their contradictions in these recessionary times. No place benefits more from federal largesse than this state, where the Republican governor decries "intrusive" Obama administration policies and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, voted against the stimulus bill.

Although its unemployment rate sits at just 7.9 percent, about two percentage points below the national rate, Alaska has received $3,145 per capita in federal stimulus dollars as of May, the most in the nation, according to figures compiled by Pro Publica, an investigative website.

Nevada, by contrast, has an unemployment rate north of 14 percent and has received $1,034 per capita in recovery aid. Florida's jobless rate is 11.4 percent, and the state has obtained $914 per capita.

Alaska has pension and budget woes, and oil production is slumping. But its problems are not mortal. Last year, the ax fell on new police headquarters and replacement Zamboni blades rather than on teachers and libraries.

In addition, the state has avoided the unemployment devastation visited on the Lower 48 in part because federal dollars support a third of Alaskan jobs, according to a University of Alaska, Anchorage, study.

Not that this has assuaged the anti-government rancor.

The one congressman from Alaska, Republican Don Young, denounced the stimulus as appalling. He also promised Alaskans that "if there are earmarks, we will have our fingerprints on them."

Sitting in valleys rimmed by mountains, glaciers and a vast alluvial delta, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, with its 83,000 residents, is a sub-Arctic suburban district north of Anchorage. Its largest city, Wasilla, is home to Sarah Palin.

A year ago, while still governor, she took a stab at rejecting $28.6 million in federal stimulus for weatherization. As Alaska incurs a notable winter, Republican and Democratic state legislators overruled her and accepted the money.

Matanuska-Susitna Borough officials received about $111 million in federal stimulus, according to Pro Publica. There was $28 million for schools, $25 million for highways and $900,000 for a park-and-ride lot for commuters heading to Anchorage.

Fairbanks, Alaska's second-biggest city behind Anchorage, pulled in more than $4,000 per capita in stimulus aid, including tens of millions for schools. But Jay Ramras, a Republican state representative from Fairbanks who is seeking the nomination for lieutenant governor, said he feels a tug of suspicion as he looks at that cash.

"If you want to feed us federal money like it's a narcotic and make the state into a junkie of the U.S. Treasury, OK," he said. "But we would like to be an Emersonian Alaska and just get control of our resources."

More and more Alaskans, particularly Republicans, identify the federal government and pork-barrel spending as the enemy, although Alaska was built by both.

Alaska's appetite for federal dollars has always been voracious and today is not confined to the stimulus. A study by Professor Scott Goldsmith at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, said an "extraordinary increase" in federal spending drove the state's pile-driver growth of the last 15 years.

In 1996, Alaska's share of federal spending was 38 percent above the national average. Thanks to the pork-barrel politics of the late Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, who was chief of the Senate Appropriations Committee for several years, and to the military, which keeps expanding its bases here, Alaska's share now is 71 percent higher than the national average.