Wednesday, September 3, 2008
For much of his long career in Washington, John McCain has targeted the special spending system known as earmarks. The system allows powerful members of Congress to deliver Federal cash (American taxpayer dollars) to pet projects back home with little or no public scrutiny. Hes even went so far as to publish a so-called “pork list” detailing these financial favors.
Three times in recent years, McCain’s catalogs of “objectionable” spending have included earmarks for a tiny Alaska town called Wasilla and requested by its mayor at the time — Sarah Palin.
Now, McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has chosen Palin to be his vice presidential running mate, claiming she’s a reformer just like him. A reformer? In a pig’s eye.
Public records show that as mayor of Wasilla, and then as governor of Alaska, Palin was far from shy about pursuing tens of millions in earmarks for her town, her region and her state. In fact, Palin seemed addicted to Federal earmarks.
Here are a few of the earmarks Palin was able to get approved for tiny Wasilla:
• $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project
• $1 million earmark for an communications center that law enforcement said is redundant
• $450,000 earmark for an agricultural processing facility
Wasilla had received few earmarks before Palin became mayor but, once elected, Palin actively sought Federal funds. She hired a lobbyist with close ties to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) who long controlled Federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Stevens made funneling money to Alaska his hallmark.
This year, as governor, Palin submitted to Congress a list of Alaska projects worth $197.8 million in earmarks, including $2 million to research crab productivity in the Bering Sea and $7.4 million to improve runway lighting at eight Alaska airports.
“So while Sen. McCain was going after cutting earmarks in Washington,” said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, “Gov. Palin was going after getting earmarks.”
From the Left 
An excellent, substantive blog entry that proves both McCain and Palin are just two more Republican hypocrites.
Neither is particularly smart and neither cares much for this country or the American people — despite their hollow rhetoric.
I don’t think McCain could’ve done any worse than selecting Sarah Palin to be his running mate.
Since the FBI taped has more than 100 phone conversations involving Sen. Ted Stevens as part of the government’s corruption investigation of him, then surely there has to be at least some recorded calls between Sarah Palin and Stevens? If these are ever released and they show Palin being all girlie and begging for Federal dollars like a common whore, this ought to really help disgrace her,
Palin is a liar and a hypocrite.
I head MSNBC’s Mika Brezenski say this morning, ‘We love Sarah Palin,” but then failed to tell her viewers why? Please, Mika, why do you love a liar and a hypocrite who is opposed to equal pay legislation that guarantees you daughter can’t be discriminated against in salary compensation?
Apparently, because this radical, rightwinger has a vagina and that is sufficient for Femdom.
OK, I get it.
The world according to Sarah Palin is one where everyone must reform and live within their means.
Everyone except Sarah Palin, that is.