Critics: Palin used 'Bridge to Nowhere' for gain

[thoughtone]

I suspect that this chick has a lot of dirt under her finger nails!

source: Yahoo News

By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Gov. Sarah Palin was for the so-called infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" before she was against it, a change of position the GOP vice presidential running mate conveniently ignored Saturday when she bragged about telling Congress "thanks but no thanks" to the pork barrel project.

Federal funds for the $398 million bridge were tacked into an appropriations bill as an earmark, the practice by which members of Congress get special funding for pet projects. Sen. John McCain opposes earmarks as an avenue for pork barrel and special interest spending.

After McCain introduced her as his choice for vice president on the Republican ticket, Palin talked about her reform credentials, and said she stopped the bridge project as part of an effort to end of earmarking in appropriations bills.

The Alaska bridge pushed by Sen. Ted Stevens became a symbol of congressional misuse of tax dollars. It would have connected the town of Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport on it. Ferries and water taxis serve the island now.

"I have championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress," Palin said in her vice presidential campaign debut in Dayton, Ohio. "In fact, I told Congress, I told Congress 'thanks but no thanks' on that Bridge to Nowhere."

"If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves," she said.

She didn't talk that way when she was running for governor. The Anchorage Daily News quoted her on Oct. 22, 2006, as saying yes, she would continue state funding for the bridge because she wanted swift action on infrastructure projects. "The window is now while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist," she said.

McCain has used the Alaska bridge as a case study in what's wrong with the way Congress spends money. After the Ketchikan bridge became an issue and an object of ridicule, Congress dropped the earmark.

Andrew Halcro ran against Palin in the 2006 governor's race, receiving the third most voters, and remains a critic. In his blog and Web site, Halcro raised the bridge issue, saying Palin changed her position for political purposes.

Political flip-flops are a mainstay of presidential politics. One of the most famous examples is John Kerry's explanation for opposing and then favoring an $87 billion Iraq funding bill during the 2004 presidential campaign. "I actually did vote for the $87 billion," he said, "before I voted against it."

According to the Ketchikan Daily News, the bridge issue came up on Sept. 20, 2006, during an appearance the gubernatorial candidates made in Ketchikan.

"The money that's been appropriated for the project, it should remain available for a link, an access process as we continue to evaluate the scope and just how best to just get this done," the newspaper quoted Palin as saying. "This link is a commitment to help Ketchikan expand its access, to help this community prosper."

The newspaper also reported that she said "I think we're going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project."

The bridge issue dates back several years. Former Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski, who had been an Alaska senator, wanted it built. Stevens and Rep. Don Young, pushed the project through Congress, securing $452 million in a federal transportation bill for two bridges — the one in Ketchikan and another in Anchorage.

With criticism over earmarks increasing, Congress stripped the provision from the bill, requiring instead that some of the money be used for an airport. Alaska eventually received about half the money. Palin last fall directed that money to transportation projects statewide instead of for Ketchikan's bridge.

Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, who campaigned for Palin's Democratic opponent, said he was there at the candidate forum when "she was asked about the bridge and she supported it."

Bill McAllister, Palin's press secretary, questioned how she could have used the scuttled bridge project to promote herself in national politics when she got there a week ago as McCain's unexpected choice for the ticket. "How could she have foreseen that she would be at this point now? Everybody is surprised by this development," McAllister said.

McAllister, who covered the 2006 campagin as a TV reporter, said Palin was lukewarm about the bridge as a candidate and cooled on it as governor.

"Of course when you become governor things come into much sharper focus than when you are a candidate," he said. "Then she is forced to pay very close attention to the fiscal realities of it."

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Palin flip-flopped
on 'Bridge to Nowhere' funds</font size></center>


Anchorage Daily News
By Tom Kizza
Sunday, August 31, 2008

When John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded budget-cutter was front and center.

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge.

But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere." They're still feeling pain today in Ketchikan, over Palin's subsequent decision to use the bridge funds for other projects -- and over the timing of her announcement, which they say came in a pre-dawn press release that seemed aimed at national news deadlines.

"I think that's when the campaign for national office began," said Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein on Saturday.


State of Alaska Still Building Road to No Where
Meanwhile, Weinstein noted, the state is continuing to build a road on Gravina Island to an empty beach where the bridge would have gone -- because federal money for the access road, unlike the bridge money, would have otherwise been returned to the federal government.

ADVERTISEMENT Click here to find out more! It's a more complicated picture than the one drawn by McCain, a persistent critic of special-interest spending and congressional earmarks. He described Palin as "someone who's stopped government from wasting taxpayers' money on things they don't want or need."

McCain also claimed to have found, in Palin, "someone with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies" and "someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past" and "someone who has reached across the aisle and asked Republicans, Democrats and independents to serve in government." On those scores, Palin can fairly claim credit, according to Alaska political leaders and others who have followed her career here.

She did fight corruption as a whistle-blower, even before an FBI investigation burst into public view. She also stood up to "party bosses," as McCain claimed, running against Republican incumbents as an outsider -- though she has yet to unseat her nemesis, Randy Ruedrich, as state party chairman.

Palin told the crowd she had signed a major ethics law -- an appropriately modest claim, because although she pushed for the ethics changes, the main impetus had come from state legislators, especially minority Democrats.

COST-CUTTING CONSERVATIVE?

The trickiest defense of Palin in the national spotlight involves her reputation as a budget-cutting fiscal conservative.

Part of that reputation comes from her political rhetoric, beginning with her years as mayor of Wasilla. But while Palin made controversial cuts at the local museum in Wasilla and battled library expansion, she oversaw a fast-growing town with a fast-growing budget to match.

As with much of Palin's sun-kissed career, her timing was ideal: She was able to cut property taxes by three-fourths because sales tax revenues from the city's new big-box stores were soaring. She even pushed for a sales tax increase to build a pet project, a new sports complex for ice hockey.

Similarly, as governor, she has presided over a state flooded with new oil revenues, brought by high oil prices and a new tax regime she pushed over industry objections. She vetoed $268 million in state capital projects this year, but her cuts came out of an unusually swollen capital budget.

"It would be hard not to appear conservative with the huge budget approved by the majority," said Rep. Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, the House minority leader.

Palin and the Legislature both were criticized by some conservatives for not making more effort to slow growth in the state's operating budget.

At the same time, Palin deserves credit for trying to impose some objective criteria on the capital budget, which is essentially a huge exercise in earmarking by individual legislators, said Sen. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River.

"I thought she showed some guts in doing that and really irritated some folks," said Dyson, adding that he disagreed with some of her decisions.

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE

But it is the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere in Ketchikan that seems destined to make or break Palin's national reputation as a cost-cutting conservative.

The bridge was intended to provide access to Ketchikan's airport on lightly populated Gravina Island, opening up new territory for expansion at the same time. Alaska's congressional delegation endured withering criticism for earmarking $223 million for Ketchikan and a similar amount for a crossing of Knik Arm at Anchorage.

Congress eventually removed the earmark language but the money still went to Alaska, leaving it up to the administration of then-Gov. Frank Murkowski to decide whether to go ahead with the bridges or spend the money on something else.

In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town's prosperity.

She said she could feel the town's pain at being derided as a "nowhere" by prominent politicians, noting that her home town, Wasilla, had recently been insulted by the state Senate president, Ben Stevens.

"OK, you've got Valley trash standing here in the middle of nowhere," Palin said, according to an account in the Ketchikan Daily News. "I think we're going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project."

One year later, Ketchikan's Republican leaders said they were blindsided by Palin's decision to pull the plug.

Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Saturday that as projected costs for the Ketchikan bridge rose to nearly $400 million, administration officials were telling Ketchikan that the project looked less likely. Local leaders shouldn't have been surprised when Palin announced she was turning to less-costly alternatives, Leighow said. Indeed, Leighow produced a report quoting Palin, late in the governor's race, indicating she would also consider alternatives to a bridge.

CHANGE OF VIEW

Andrew Halcro, who ran against Palin in 2006, told The Associated Press on Saturday that Palin changed her views after she was elected to make a national splash.

Mayor Weinstein said many residents remain irked by Palin's failure to come to Ketchikan since that time to defend her decision -- despite promises that she would.

Weinstein may be especially sore -- he helped run the local campaign of Palin's 2006 Democratic rival, Tony Knowles. But comments this week from area Republicans show bitterness there too.

Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican who represents Ketchikan in the state Senate, told the Ketchikan Daily News he was proud to see Palin picked for the vice-president's role, but disheartened by her reference to the bridge.

"In the role of governor, she should be pursuing a transportation policy that benefits the state of Alaska, (rather than) pandering to the southern 48," he said.

Businessman Mike Elerding, who helped run Palin's local campaign for governor, told the paper he would have a hard time voting for the McCain ticket because of Palin's subsequent neglect of Ketchikan and her flip-flop on the "Ralph Bartholomew Veterans Memorial Bridge."

TIMING OF PRESS RELEASE

Palin's 2007 press release announcing her change of course came just a month after McCain himself slammed the Ketchikan bridge for taking money that could have been used to shore up dangerous bridges like one that collapsed in Minnesota.

Leighow said she had no record of what time she sent out the press release, but does not recall being told to send it out early for East Coast media.

Once Palin spiked the bridge project, the money wasn't available to Minnesota or other states, however. Congress, chastened by criticism of the Alaska funding, had removed the earmark but allowed the state to keep the money and direct it to other transportation projects.

Enhanced ferry access to Gravina Island is one option under consideration, the state said.

Meanwhile, work is under way on a three-mile road on Gravina Island, originally meant to connect the airport and the new bridge. State officials said last year they were going ahead with the $25 million road because the money would otherwise have to be returned to the federal government.

Leighow said the road project was already under way last year when Palin stopped the bridge, and she noted that it would provide benefits of opening up new territory for development -- one of the original arguments made for the bridge spending.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/51273.html

 

[thoughtone]

Palin, An Outside-The-Beltway Reformer? Ask Her Lobbyists.

Another republican Jedi mind trick. She is a typical right wing corpratist hypocrite, fitting in to today's GOP mold!

source: The Washington Post

Palin's Small Alaska Town Secured Big Federal Funds

By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; A01

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 1 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group.

There was $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs, and $15 million for a rail project -- all intended to benefit Palin's town, Wasilla, located about 45 miles north of Anchorage.

In introducing Palin as his running mate on Friday, Sen. John McCain cast her as a compatriot in his battle against wasteful federal spending. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, hailed Palin as a politician "with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies -- someone who has fought against corruption and the failed policies of the past, someone who's stopped government from wasting taxpayers' money."

McCain's crusade against earmarks -- federal spending sought by members of Congress to benefit specific projects -- has been a hallmark of his campaign. He has said earmarks are wasteful and are often inserted into bills with little oversight, sometimes by a single powerful lawmaker.

Palin has also railed against earmarks, touting her opposition to a $223 million bridge in the state as a prime credential for the vice presidential nomination. "As governor, I've stood up to the old politics-as-usual, to the special interests, to the lobbyists, the big oil companies, and the good-ol'-boy network," she said Friday.

As mayor of Wasilla, however, Palin oversaw the hiring of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage-based law firm with close ties to Alaska's most senior Republicans: Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, who was indicted in July on charges of accepting illegal gifts. The Wasilla account was handled by the former chief of staff to Stevens, Steven W. Silver, who is a partner in the firm.

Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996 on a campaign theme of "a time for change." According to a review of congressional spending by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, Wasilla did not receive any federal earmarks in the first few years of Palin's tenure.

Senate records show that Silver's firm began working for Palin in early 2000, just as federal money began flowing.

In fiscal 2000, Wasilla received a $1 million earmark, tucked into a transportation appropriations bill, for a rail and bus project in the town. And in the winter of 2000, Palin appeared before congressional appropriations committees to seek earmarks, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News.

Palin and the Wasilla City Council increased Silver's fee from $24,000 to $36,000 a year by 2001, Senate records show.

Soon after, the city benefited from additional earmarks: $500,000 for a mental health center, $500,000 for the purchase of federal land and $450,000 to rehabilitate an agricultural processing facility. Then there was the $15 million rail project, intended to connect Wasilla with the town of Girdwood, where Stevens has a house.

The Washington trip is now an annual event for Wasilla officials.

In fiscal year 2002, Wasilla took in $6.1 million in earmarks -- about $1,000 in federal money for every resident. By contrast, Boise, Idaho -- which has more than 190,000 residents -- received $6.9 million in earmarks in fiscal 2008.

All told, Wasilla benefited from $26.9 million in earmarks in Palin's final four years in office.

"She certainly wasn't shy about putting the old-boy network to use to bring home millions of dollars," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "She's a little more savvy to the ways of Washington than she's let on."

Silver, reached by phone at his Vienna home, declined to comment. Wasilla's town offices were closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

Maria Comella, Palin's campaign spokeswoman, said Palin sought the Wasilla earmarks because she was "working in the best interests of Alaska, working within the confines of the current system."

Palin became a staunch reform advocate after her 2003 appointment to the state's Oil and Gas Commission. She accused another commissioner -- Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich -- of raising campaign contributions from industries he was regulating. "She realized that the environment around her was no longer what it once was, and elected officials were abusing their power," Comella said.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, used to secure earmarks for public nonprofits in Illinois, but he announced last year that he would no longer seek earmarks for any entity. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Obama's running mate, co-sponsored $85.6 million in earmarks for 2008, according to one study.

The Palin earmarks came when Stevens was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Young was a senior member of the House transportation committee.

In hiring Silver, Wasilla found someone who was a member of each lawmaker's inner circle. Silver has donated at least $11,400 to Stevens's political committees and $10,000 to Young's reelection committee in the past decade, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Sliver's firm employed Stevens's son, Ben Stevens, in the late 1990s as a federal lobbyist, according to multiple media accounts. Ben Stevens was not listed on lobbying disclosure forms as having worked on Wasilla earmarks.

The firm became ensnared in the wide-ranging federal investigation of corruption by Alaska Republican officials. Federal agents reviewed records about its other municipal clients, as well as fishing companies represented by Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh that were close to Ben Stevens.

The investigation has increasingly focused on Veco, a now-defunct energy services company whose chief executive, Bill Allen Jr., pleaded guilty in May 2007 to bribing Alaska officials.

Ted Stevens is awaiting trial on charges that he accepted more than $250,000 in unreported gifts from Allen. Ben Stevens, who has not been charged, has been identified in court documents as having accepted more than $240,000 in consulting payments in exchange for legislative favors while he served in the state Senate.

A Veco executive testified last year in a criminal trial that Allen had ordered him to arrange annual fundraisers for Young. The congressman has not been charged with any crimes.

After becoming governor, Palin became a critic of Young and the Stevenses. She endorsed Young's opponent in a Republican primary last week that is still too close to call, and last year she demanded Ben Stevens's resignation as Alaska's member of the Republican National Committee. She has also criticized Ted Stevens.

In addition, Palin has reversed course on at least one major earmark: After initially supporting the $223 million bridge, which was to connect the town of Ketchikan with a remote island, she reversed course last year and canceled the project because of cost overruns. Critics have dubbed the project the "Bridge to Nowhere."

But her administration remains eager for many other earmarks.

In February, Palin's office sent Sen. Stevens a 70-page memo outlining almost $200 million worth of new funding requests for Alaska.

 

[thoughtone]

Pork Barrel Fighter? McCain Had Criticized Earmarks From Palin

source: Los Angeles Times

Three times in recent years, the Arizona senator's lists of 'objectionable' pork spending have included earmarks requested by his new running mate.
By Tom Hamburger, Richard Simon and Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 3, 2008
WASILLA, ALASKA -- For much of his long career in Washington, John McCain has been throwing darts at the special spending system known as earmarking, through which powerful members of Congress can deliver federal cash for pet projects back home with little or no public scrutiny. He's even gone so far as to publish "pork lists" detailing these financial favors.

Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin.

Now, McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, has chosen Palin as his running mate, touting her as a reformer just like him.

McCain has made opposition to pork-barrel spending a central theme of his 2008 campaign. "Earmarking deprives federal agencies of scarce resources, at the whim of individual members of Congress," McCain has said.

But records show that Palin -- first as mayor of Wasilla and recently as governor of Alaska -- was far from shy about pursuing tens of millions in earmarks for her town, her region and her state.

This year, Palin, who has been governor for nearly 22 months, defended earmarking as a vital part of the legislative system. "The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship," she wrote in a newspaper column.

In 2001, McCain's list of spending that had been approved without the normal budget scrutiny included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla. The Arizona senator targeted $1 million in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town -- one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion.

McCain also criticized $450,000 set aside for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin's tenure as mayor and cleared Congress soon after she left office in 2002. The funding was provided to help direct locally grown produce to schools, prisons and other government institutions, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Wasilla received $11.9 million in earmarks from 2000 to 2003. The results of this spending are very apparent today. (The town also benefited from $15 million in federal funds to promote regional rail transportation.)

The community transit center is a landmark: a one-story, tile-fronted building with a drive-through garage. Its fleet of 10 buses provides service throughout the region. Mat-Su Community Transit Agency officials say the building was made possible with a combination of federal money and matching gifts from a private foundation.

Taylor Griffin, a McCain campaign spokesman, said that when Palin became mayor in 1996, "she faced a system that was broken. Small towns like Wasilla in Alaska depended on earmarks to take care of basic needs. . . . That was something that Gov. Palin was alarmed about and was one of the formative experiences that led her toward the reform-oriented stance that she has taken as her career has progressed."

Palin, he said, was "disgusted" that small towns like hers were dependent on earmarks.

Public records paint a different picture:

Wasilla had received few if any earmarks before Palin became mayor. She actively sought federal funds -- a campaign that began to pay off only after she hired a lobbyist with close ties to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who long controlled federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He made funneling money to Alaska his hallmark.

Steven Silver was a former chief of staff for Stevens. After he was hired, Wasilla obtained funding for several projects in 2002, including an additional $600,000 in transportation funding.

That year, a local water and sewer project received $1.5 million, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, which combs federal spending measures to identify projects inserted by congressional members.

When Palin spoke after McCain introduced her as his running mate at a rally in Ohio last week, she made fun of earmarking. She said she had rejected $223 million in federal funds for a bridge linking Ketchikan to an island with an airport and 50 residents, referring to it by its derogatory label: the "bridge to nowhere."

In the nationally televised speech, she stood by McCain and said, "I've championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress thanks, but no thanks, on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said, we'd build it ourselves."

However, as a candidate for governor in 2006, Palin had backed funding for the bridge. After her election, she killed the much-ridiculed project when it became clear the state had other priorities. She said she would use the federal funds to fill those needs.

This year she submitted to Congress a list of Alaska projects worth $197.8 million, including $2 million to research crab productivity in the Bering Sea and $7.4 million to improve runway lighting at eight Alaska airports. A spokesman said she cut the original list of 54 projects to 31.

"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."

 

[QueEx]

Re: Pork Barrel Fighter? McCain Had Criticized Earmarks From Palin

<font size="5"><center>Palin was for earmarks
before she was against them</font size><font size="4">

Palin also sought earmarks, both as a governor and
a small-town mayor — a position that is at odds
with McCain's zero tolerance. </font size></center>




McClatchy Newspapers
By Erika Bolstad
Thursday, September 4, 2008


WASHINGTON — Back in late February, when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin met Sen. John McCain for the first time at a convention of U.S. governors, the two dished about a number of things, but mostly earmarks.

"We just talked about earmark reform and how it's going to happen," Palin said shortly after she attended a breakfast for Republican governors featuring McCain.

Since McCain announced last week that she would be vice presidential running mate, his campaign has worked to paint Palin as a crusader who took on two of the most successful appropriators in the history of Congress: her fellow Republicans and titans of Alaska politics, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. But Palin also sought earmarks, both as a governor and a small-town mayor — a position that is at odds with McCain's zero tolerance.

So what exactly is Palin's position on earmarks? Is it an opportunistic evolution mirroring a growing national distaste for the spending practice or true conviction that Alaska needed to be weaned from such federal spending?

"My position has been in trying to read that writing on the wall, and understanding there's going to be reform, we can either put our heads in the sand and ignore the reforms that are coming," she said in a February interview. "Or we can be proactive and get Alaska in the position of being more productive, contributing more and becoming less reliant on the federal government."

Unlike McCain, though, Palin has not been a purist on earmarks. As Alaska governor, she sought and obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks for the state, and as mayor of Wasilla, she hired lobbyist and former Stevens staffer Steve Silver to steer federal money to her town.

Some of her earmark projects when she served as mayor from 1996 to 2002 even landed on McCain's list of questionable congressional pork barrel spending.

"I think she will fit in really well in Washington, D.C., because she is already used to saying one thing and doing another," said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a key adviser to Sen. Barack Obama and one of the few Democrats who refuses to ask for earmarks.

"Not only has she taken them, she has gorged on earmarks," McCaskill said. "It's not what you say, it's what you do."

One thing is clear: Palin has increasingly distanced herself from earmarking since she made her first trip to Washington to lobby Congress for money in 2000. And over the past year, her stance has been the leading source of tension between Palin and the state's three-member congressional delegation.

Last year, when Palin announced the state was abandoning plans for the so-called "bridge to nowhere" in southeastern Alaska, she was met with what could kindly be described as a frosty reception from the delegation.

Her move embarrassed Stevens and Young — Stevens even complained publicly this spring that "the issue of earmarks and the way they handled the bridge money" made it challenging for him, Young and fellow Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to ask for any special federal set-asides for Alaska.

"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 said in an interview at the time.

The three lawmakers were so infuriated that they began publicizing on their individual Web sites all the earmark requests they received from Alaska, just to point out the sheer volume, especially the number originating from the governor's office.

Palin's staff is quick to point out that the governor's office has sliced its federal requests since she took office.

For fiscal 2007, the administration of former Gov. Frank Murkowski submitted 63 earmark requests totaling $350 million, Palin's staff said.

That slid to 52 earmarks valued at $256 million in Palin's first year. This year, the governor's office asked the delegation to help it land 31 earmarks valued at $197 million.

Why the gradual move away from earmarks? Palin recognized that Alaska's coffers were overflowing with revenue from oil profits and felt it was almost unseemly for the state to press so aggressively for federal money, said John Katz, who heads the Alaska governor's Washington, D.C., office.

In December 2007, Palin's budget director put out a memo urging state officials who were assembling their department spending plans to reserve earmarks for compelling needs only, in an effort to "enhance the state's credibility."

"When she took office, we talked about the state's reliance on federal earmarks and she made it clear for several reasons she wanted to significantly cut back on that reliance," Katz said.

Several other factors contributed. The national mood was turning, in part because of the controversy of the proposed bridge, which would have linked the airport on Gravina Island to Ketchikan. That shift meant it would be harder to land earmarks, especially for Alaska. Also, Stevens and Young, while still senior lawmakers, faced a diminishing role in Congress when the GOP lost control to Democrats in 2006.

But former sinners are welcome into the anti-earmark fold, said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the leading crusader in Congress for scaling back wasteful spending in Congress.

"Anybody that comes to Washington that wants to help change the process, and reform the process so that the next couple of generations have some hope, I'm all for them," Coburn said. "If she has a solid position now, I'm all for her. I think she's going to be just what the doctor ordered."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/51745.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Pork Barrel Fighter? McCain Had Criticized Earmarks From Palin

<font size="5"><center>McCain and Palin castigate
the earmarks she seeks</font size><font size="4">

McCain and Palin equate earmarks for special projects
with corruption; while Palin has requested
200 Million in earmarks this year</font size></center>


Associated Press
By JENNIFER LOVEN
September 10, 2008

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, equated lawmakers' requests for funding for special projects with corruption on Wednesday even though Palin herself has requested nearly $200 million in so-called "earmarks" this year.

Campaigning in Virginia, McCain suggested earmarks are particularly shameful at a time when families are struggling with rising food, gas and home mortgage costs. He vowed again to veto any bill that contains such funding.

"I got an old ink pen, my friends, and the first pork barrel-laden earmark, big-spending bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. You will know their names. I will make them famous and we'll stop this corruption," McCain said during a rally at a park in suburban Washington, D.C.

<font size="3">Palin has sought $197 million worth of earmarks for 2009, down about 25 percent from the $256 million she sought in the 2008 budget year. As mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, she hired a lobbyist to seek federal money for special projects. Wasilla obtained 14 earmarks, totaling $27 million, between 2000-2003, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.</font size>​

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hasn't asked for any earmarks this year. The Illinois senator sought $311 million in such funding last year. McCain, an Arizona senator, doesn't seek earmarks for his state.

Undaunted by his running mate's ties to earmarks, McCain said: "I've fought corruption, and it didn't matter if it was Democrats or Republican, and so has Sarah Palin."

Palin said she has "championed earmark reform" as governor and "reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state." Now, she said, she is ready to join McCain in Washington "so we can end the corrupt practice of abusive earmarks after all."

The practice of earmarking — lawmakers inserting special requests for money for home-state projects in spending bills — is a longtime anti-Washington bugaboo for politicians running for office. Many find that, once in office, requests from constituents for help on a particular project is too tough to resist and support bringing that kind of money home to their states and districts.

"John McCain's idea of changing Washington is a vice-presidential candidate who, as governor, requested more pork per person than any other state in the country," said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Still, McCain and Palin's attack on earmarks in the face of those she has requested joins other statements by the vice presidential nominee that have been widely debunked:

• Palin routinely claims to have put an end to Alaska's infamous "bridge to nowhere," even though she supported the project during her gubernatorial campaign and turned against it only when it became a national embarrassment and Congress threatened to cut its funding.

• Palin has claimed that she put the governor's jet on the Internet auction site eBay, and McCain has said it was sold at a profit. However, the jet was never sold via eBay.

• Palin says she eliminated the governor's chef from the state budget, yet she gave the person another job in state government.

McCain aides said Thursday's event attracted the biggest non-convention crowd of his campaign, with local officials reporting an estimated 23,000 at the event. People filled the grass and hillsides to make a sea of red, as the state GOP exhorted everyone coming to wear the hue in a sign of support for the party, and they often drowned out the candidates' words with chanting.

Judging by shouts from the crowd, the enthusiasm seemed driven primarily by the presence of Palin. She has electrified both McCain's campaign and the party since he announced her as his running mate almost two weeks ago.

The reaction was significantly different in Philadelphia.

McCain made a solo trip for a roundtable discussion with half a dozen female business leaders at the Down Home Diner. The appearance, inside a bustling indoor downtown marketplace, formed a sharp contrast with the earlier joint show, as the arrival of both McCain's bus outside and him inside was greeted by loud Obama crowds.

The Republican could barely be heard over the Obama cheers by the women he met, or by reporters when McCain made a statement after.

"Pennsylvania is a battleground state, as we can tell," he said with a small smile.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE2JCSH5p9r2GBkQWS9TWAMzmuvQD9342I900

 

[QueEx]

Re: Pork Barrel Fighter? McCain Had Criticized Earmarks From Palin

- Jim Morin / Miami Herald (September 11, 2008)

 

[thoughtone]

^^^^^^