CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Sept. 10, 2008 – 9:58 p.m.
A Guide to Palin’s Earmark Requests
By David Nather, CQ Staff
from CQ Politics blog beyond the dome
By now, the image of Sarah Palin as a fighter of earmarks is central to John McCain ’s narrative of why he picked her. So it’s worth a closer look at Palin’s actual record on earmarks, which includes the fact that, yes, she did ask for them.
On the trail, Palin never actually claims that she hasn’t asked for earmarks. But she definitely leaves the impression that she’s every bit as passionate a fighter against the practice as McCain is, and certainly more so than Barack Obama , who didn’t endorse a moratorium on earmarks until this year.
“I championed earmark reform, also, to help Congress stop wasting money on those things that do not serve the public interest,” Palin said this morning at a campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia. “We reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state, and it was while our opponent was requesting a billion dollars in earmarks as a senatorial privilege. What I was doing was vetoing half a billion as an executive responsibility.”
That speech touched off some unusually outraged media coverage, which noted that Palin had, in fact, asked Congress for nearly $200 million in federal earmarks just this year. Could it be? Where’s the evidence?
Fortunately, if you’re curious, you can look them all up, thanks to the Web site of Alaska’s earmark king, Sen. Ted Stevens — who was thoughtful enough to list all of the earmark requests he got and who asked for them. Sure enough, Palin’s office submitted 31 requests, totalling approximately $197 million. You can read the list here.
It’s not that the image of Palin as an earmark fighter is a total myth. Palin did, in fact, anger Stevens by trying to cut back on earmark requests. “It is a difficult thing to get over right now, the feeling that we don’t represent Alaska because Alaska doesn’t want earmarks,” Stevens told the Anchorage Daily News in March.
Palin made it clear she was trying to get on the right side of growing momentum to rein in federal earmarks. “You can either be proactive and be a part of the positive changes that are coming,” she told the paper, “or you can try to fight this new system that’s coming in.”
In addition, the cover letter to Stevens states that the requests were “reduced significantly from previous years,” noting that Palin’s office was “mindful of congressional concerns about budget deficits and earmarks.” That statement shows that “there is some recognition . . . that there is some problem generally with earmarks,” said Steve Ellis, a spokesman for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
In a memo e-mailed to reporters this afternoon, the McCain campaign said Palin’s requests were a significant reduction from the record of the previous Alaska governor, Republican Frank Murkowski, whom Palin unseated in 2006. Murkowski’s final request asked for $350 million in earmarks, according to the campaign.
Still, asking for fewer earmarks is not the same as rejecting them on principle. “It would obviously be hard to say that here’s 31 earmark requests worth nearly $200 million and earmarks are evil,” said Ellis. It’s worth keeping in mind every time McCain and Palin try to present themselves as the taxpayers’ best friends and the earmarkers’ worst enemies.
Comments
She proposed a $30 billion pipeline that was the "will of God." A month ago she doesn't know what the vice-president does, and she praissd the biggest pork barrel spender in Congress Ted Stevens. These facts were from http://dailysource.org/palin
No lie is too big enough to be told by the Republicans. The Bush years will live on!
In 2005, the year before Palin took office, Alaskans got $2.50 for each dollar of federal tax collected in the state. In the same year, Illinoisans got back 75 cents. Even if Palin were attempting to reduce the the level of federal slop in the Alaska trough, she certainly has no business criticizing Obama for trying to squeeze a few more of his piggies in for their fair share.
To the women out there: As an American woman, do you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for us and for our present or future daughters? To date, she is against education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears--to say nothing of her complete lack of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the planet. You are invited to reply here: womensaynopalin@gmail.com (@gmail.com) with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation. Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence. We will post your responses on a blog called "Women Against Sarah Palin," which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your reply at your earliest convenience-the greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be. Thank you for your time and action. *PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!* If you send this to 20 women in the next hour, you could be blessed with a country that takes your concerns seriously. Stranger things have happened.
It is fascinating that the media has taken a partisan position in this race. (I usually refer to the MSM, but CQ is really just a small player). The simple fact is that Governor Palin is a leader in earmark reform. Every time the MSM trots out the "she was for it before she was against it," they are just showing that they wanted John Kerry to win and they are unhappy that he lost the election. The more the media whines about how people shouldn't like Governor Palin for one reason or another, the more they show their true colors - pro-Democrat, pro-liberal partisans. That is fine, but don't expect us to continue paying you to take a partisan position; hence the decline of the fortunes of the MSM. Keep up your partisan spinning and you'll spin yourself right out of a job.
Wait a minute - she WAS for the bridge before she was against it! She campaigned for governor on supporting the Ketchikan airport bridge. Then it got a lot of negative attention, and she said she was * and had always been * against it. You can change your mind, just not retroactively. Then she accepted the money, and applied it to a road near Ketchikan. Fine for Alaska, if all you want is earmarks. Expensive for the "Lower 48" she derides. Never mind her personal financial issues - personal, except on the state of Alaska's tab. Fibber McGee and Golly are the picture of dishonesty and ignorance.
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