Earmarks. Pork-barrel politics. Money from Washington. McCain and Palin hit the campaign trail by boasting about “reform” in government.
The truth comes out. First, Sarah Palin said on Friday: “I told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere.’ ”
Cheering crowds actually thought she opposed the $454 million for Alaska bridges. Wrong.
Articles in Alaska papers blew the whistle.
It turns out that during the campaign in 2006 Sarah Palin was the only candidate who was saying, “We are going to build that bridge.” She went to Ketchikan and campaigned for the bridge. She was quoted in the local paper as a strong proponent
“We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge, and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative,” Palin said in August 2006, according to the Ketchikan Daily News.
The mayor, Bob Weinstein, says “she was very affirmative, unqualified: ‘we’ve got to get the bridge done.’ ”
The irony is that when Congress rebelled and the project got canceled and she came out against it, the nearly half a billion dollars stayed in Alaska for other projects. So the pork stayed, and you paid.
Here is what Palin also said on Friday in Dayton, Ohio: “I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending.”
Oh, please, spare us.
This woman has clear problems with the truth. Here are the facts:
As mayor of Wasilla she was on a plane back and forth to Washington to seek federal earmarks. She hired a Washington lobbyist, Steve Silver, a former chief of staff to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), to secure earmarks for her town of 7,000. Hers was only one of six of the 149 municipalities to hire a lobbyist in Washington. During her time as mayor, nearly $27 million was secured, projects like a $900,000 bus facility, $1.5 million for water and sewer, $15 million for a rail project. Not bad — $3,843 for every man, woman and child in Wasilla.
Alaska, as everyone knows, is the top recipient of pork barrel spending per capita of any state in the nation. As mayor she led the way. As governor, there are 32 earmarks pending for $197.8 million dollars in next year’s budget.
Reform? Change? Not believable, Sarah — sorry. Your record is your record. And you can’t run from it or, heaven forbid, change it halfway across the bridge.