PALIN: 31 Earmark Requests=$197 Million-10 Times MORE Per Person Than ANY OTHER STATE!

[kpete]

The truth is out. Sarah Palin may have posed as an opponent of congressionally mandated earmarks, but when the slop was in the bucket, she was one of the first at Senator Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) trough.

Sarah Palin, John McCain, and Earmarks

By Scott Lilly
September 4, 2008

.........................

The Seattle Times reported yesterday that she submitted 31 earmark requests totaling $197 million in the current (FY2009) budget cycle. According to that paper, it was “more, per person, than any other state.”



The Washington Post reports that in 2000, Palin took an extraordinary step as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town that had fewer than 5,500 residents—she hired a Washington lobbyist to seek congressional earmarks. According to the Post, she won a total of $6.1 million in earmarks for the city of Wasilla in 2002.

A review of the Taxpayers for Common Sense database from which the Post derived that number indicates that 2002 was actually a subpar year for Palin. Over the course of her four years she sought earmarks as city mayor and won an average of $6.7 million a year.

Both numbers need to be placed in some perspective. Fiscal year 2008 was the first year for which there was a complete listing of all earmarks contained in all appropriation bills. That information was loaded into several databases, including the one developed by Taxpayers for Common Sense. According to that data, the average state got about $50 per person in earmarked funds in 2008. Alaska, represented by Ted Stevens, the Senate’s earmarker-in-chief, got $506 per person—about 10 times the national average. Wasilla between 2000 and 2003 was getting well over $1,000 per person—twice the Alaska state average in 2008.

more at:
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/palin_earmarks.html

[AuntPatsy]

1. I'm beginning to think they just cannot find it in themselves to turn the script and after

ten years of the same ole same ole, they have lost much of their credibility, the only ones who believe them without fact checking are the fundies, thats it....

[SuperTrouper]

2. Drip drip drip

[Median Democrat]

3. Good Luck Getting Big Media To Run With That...Election Will Be Tough

The biggest fraud of the election so far is the idea of a liberal media. Its a myth.

[patrice]

4. And THEN SP et al were planning to secede with ALL of that money that WE invested in them.

[Ian David]

5. Those 42 meth labs in Wasilla can't pay for everything, now can they? n/t

[dkf]

6. Didn't Obama help get that disclosure bill passed?

[K8-EEE]

7. THIS NEEDS TO BE A TALKING POINT.

CAN'T REPEAT IT ENOUGH. HYPOCRITES.