Legal Commentary

Palin's history shows ever-growing opposition to earmarks

By Beldar

GOP vice presidential nominee has been accused of "flip-flopping" and being hypocritical on the subject of federal "earmarks" ? appropriations to state governments associated with particular state spending projects.

This article from the Anchorage Daily News is probably the best reporting I've seen on the subject, and I highly recommend it to you. From Palin's own mouth in a February 2008 interview:

"My position has been in trying to read that writing on the wall, and understanding there's going to be reform," she said. "We can either put our heads in the sand and ignore the reforms that are coming 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."

The article goes on to chart some of the earmark requests with which she had been involved either as Mayor of Wasilla or governor, and then brings us up to date (bold-face mine):

One thing is clear: Palin has increasingly distanced herself from earmarking since she made her first trip to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress for money in 2000. And over the past year, it 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 Southeast 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.

When a candidate's positions and actions show change over time, you want the change to be in the correct direction. With respect to the "Bridge to Nowhere," what's significant is that by the time she was in a position to direct where federal funds (which were no longer dedicated for that project) could go, she directed them elsewhere. Gov. Palin's current claim to have stopped the expenditure of those funds on the "Bridge to Nowhere" is exactly accurate.

Combine that with a track record of using her line-item veto to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in "pet-project" expenditures from the state budget ? more than $268 million from this year's budget alone ? and you have not just promises, but an actual record, of fiscal conservatism that neither Barack Obama or Joe Biden can dream of demonstrating from their own records of tax-and-spend.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on September 05, 2008 (boomark / email).