McCain's Earmark Lie: Palin actually grubs $1 mil/day as Gov.
by Kagro X
Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 03:00:11 PM PDT
The Wall Street Journal:
Last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, hadn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. But state records show Gov. Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years.
It's been 652 days since Earmark Queen Sarah Palin took office as Governor of Alaska.
In that time, she's hustled for $453,000,000 in federal lipstick pork.
That's $694,785.28 a day. Six hundred ninetey-four thousand, seven hundred and eight five dollars and twenty-eight cents. Every day. Even Sundays!
Palin was grubbing six hundred ninetey-four thousand, seven hundred and eight five dollars and twenty-eight cents out of the federal trough on the very day when John McCain looked America in the eye and said she was taking zero.
And she took it again today, too.
And she took it on every one of the 312 nights she spent at home and billed the Alaskan taxpayers for it.
So why say it's a million dollars a day? Well, first, let me show you what Slick Sarah Palin is telling people:
On the campaign trail, Gov. Palin has repeatedly attacked Sen. Obama on earmarks. "Our opponent has requested nearly one billion dollars in earmarks in three years. That's about a million for every working day," she said at a rally in Albuquerque, N.M.
Ohhhh, this feels like it's going to get embarrassing in a second....
And, behold! Look what "The Math" says!
It is difficult to compare Sen. Obama's earmark record with Gov. Palin's -- their states differ in size, for instance, and the two candidates play different roles in the process. But using the same calculation that the McCain campaign uses, the total amount of earmarked dollars divided by the number of working days while each held office (assuming a five-day workweek, every week, for both), Gov. Palin sought $980,000 per workday, compared with roughly $893,000 for Sen. Obama.
Not only is Palin taking much more, but oh my word if the million dollar figure doesn't actually fit her sooooo much better than the person she's trying to use it against! What a surprise!
So that's almost a million dollars a day, whether she showed up at the office or not. A million bucks, plus $60 in her pocket for defrosting one of her own mooseburgers for lunch.
And really, Palin must be asking herself, why not chisel the Alaska state government a little bit? After all:
The state's earmark requests stand out in part because its state government is among the wealthiest in the U.S. Flush with oil and gas royalties, it doesn't impose income or sales taxes. In fact, money flows the other way: Every man, woman and child this year got a check for $3,200.
Gosh, but they're such rugged individualists up there! They're gonna launch themselves into orbit with those bootstraps, don'tcha know?
A million dollars a day. From you and me. Plus $3,200 in the bank for each one of 'em. And $60 in Sarah's pocket for every lunch at home. (Like every working mom, of course!)
It's the new fiscal responsibility, in John McCain's seven house-owning, $5 million middle class living world!
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