by Teh Nutroots | John McCain would have you believe that whatever her past mistakes, Palin has "learned that earmarks are bad." (Ben Smith) But has she? Has she really?
According to a “summary of requests for federal appropriations” posted to her budget office’s website earlier this year, Palin requested millions of federal dollars for everything from improving recreational halibut fishing to studying the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals.
It’s a position at odds with her recasting as an anti-earmarking champion, and with the tone of the biting scorn she’s employed toward the budgetary practice this week.(Ben Smith; emphasis added)
Let's just say her history shows that she's, um, ambivalent about them. That is to say, she may well be against them in theory. But in practice?
....Palin has, at times, sounded a cautionary note on earmarks despite the fact that Alaska receives more earmarked federal money per capita than any other state and is unusually reliant on those funds because of its geographic isolation, massive size and extreme climate.
Indeed, in her January state of the state address, Palin said the state “must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks.”
But the document summarizing Palin’s earmark requests was created the next month, and it suggested a still-healthy appetite for earmarks. Soon afterward, Palin wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper outlining her not-so-reticent posture on earmarks.
“My role at the federal level is simply to submit the most well-conceived earmark requests we can,” she wrote (Ben Smith).
Here are some of the earmarks she requested that---coming from someone other than his "soulmate"---would certain raise McCain's eyebrows. As Hilzoy says, you gotta laugh:
“We’re not going to spend $3 million of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana,” McCain has said during this year’s campaign, referring to a study he’s mocked for years of whether grizzlies need to keep their status as an endangered species.
Palin, meanwhile, has requested $3.2 million to be spent in part researching the “genetics of harbor seals,” in one of the state’s many requests for federal funding of research into Alaska’s fauna....
Furthermore:
She’s seeking $1 million, for instance, for a project to investigate rockfish fisheries, a request that, according to the Alaska document, was presented to and refused by Congress last year...(Ben Smith).
As Hilzoy says, a Governor who fights against earmarks isn't doing her own constituents any favors and she never had any power to "reform" Congressional spending other than not asking for earmarks. (Hilzoy)
She may or may not have disapproved of Congress handing out earmarks. But I think we can conclude that---prior to becoming McCain's running mate and learning that earmarks are bad---she has certainly liked getting them.
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We’re not going to spend $3 million of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana,” McCain has said during this year’s campaign, referring to a study he’s mocked for years of whether grizzlies need to keep their status as an endangered species.
Posted by: Mark | September 14, 2008 at 09:29 AM