Palin on Earmarks: YOU BETCHA!

[Political Tiger]

Sarah Palin: More Earmark Hypocrisy

On the campaign trail last year, Alaska's Republican governor, Sarah Palin, sold herself as a crusading reformer who despised earmarks--those federal spending projects that Capitol Hill legislators of both parties slip into appropriations bills. Though her claim to have turned down an earmark for the now-infamous Bridge to Nowhere was debunked by assorted media outlets, she kept on insisting that if she were elected vice president, she would lead a charge in Washington against earmarks.

That was then. The omnibus spending bill that President Barack Obama signed on Wednesday includes earmarks that Palin sought.

The $410 billion bill has been lambasted by Republicans and a few Democrats for being loaded with nearly 9,000 earmarks covering $7.7 billion in projects. Senator John McCain, Palin's former ticket-mate, has blasted Obama for supporting the earmark-laden legislation. ("So much for the promise of change," an angry McCain howled from the Senate floor.) But earmarks in the bill are quite generous to Palin's state. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group, Alaska will receive more money, per capita, from the bill's earmarks than any other state. (Alaska will pocket $209.71 for each state resident.) One hundred earmarks in the bill, worth a total of $143.9 million, are tagged for Palin's state.

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At the Republican convention in Minneapolis last summer, Palin introduced herself to America by declaring she was a foe of wasteful spending who had "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress." She claimed that she had said "thanks, but no thanks" to America's most infamous earmark, the Bridge to Nowhere. During the presidential campaign, McCain railed incessantly against earmarks, at one point thundering that if he made it to White House, "I will take an ink pen and I will veto every pork barrel earmark spending bill that comes across my desk."

In trying to beat back the omnibus spending bill, McCain denounced earmarking as a "corrupt practice." And he employed the timeworn tactic of publicly mocking silly sounding appropriations: "How does anyone justify some of these earmarks: $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa; $2 million 'for the promotion of astronomy' in Hawaii; $6.6 million for termite research in New Orleans; $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York." But, as they often say in Washington, one legislator's pork is another legislator's necessary program.

The earmarks that Palin apparently will accept could also be ridiculed in a McCain-ish fashion. They include $475,000 to construct a "heritage center" in the Chilkat Indian Village; $150,000 to support private industry participation in two international fishery groups; $200,000 for investigating and prosecuting bootlegging; $200,000 for researching the king crab; and $855,000 for building fairgrounds. The Alaska earmarks also include $1.2 million for construction work on an airport on Akutan, a tiny island that relies on seaplane for contact with the Alaskan mainland. (The Coast Guard handles medical emergencies.) The island has roughly 800 residents. Could this be dubbed the Airport to Nowhere?

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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/sarah-palin-earmark-hypocrisy

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Those earmarks were inserted

by the dear departed Ted Stevens. Not likely that Queen Sarah would turn them down.