With everything crashing down, let's take a look at what McCain/Palin really believe.
McCain is on record as saying he knows nothing about the economy. Fair enough. If anyone doubted that, he proved his point when he said yesterday the economy is fundamentally sound. Of course, if I had 13 houses, I'd think it was fundamentally sound, too.
So let's take him at his word. Well, since he knows nothing about the economy, I guess it's fair to assume Sarah will take a lead role in this, right? What has she done in this sphere during her brief political career?
She took a town with a zero deficit and turned that into a multi-million dollar deficit. She raised tax revenues by over 30%. She gave every citizen of Alaska $1200, rather than invest it in infrastructure.
Yes, she fired the Governor's chef - oh, wait a minute! The chef still has his job, he just cooks for the legislature now. Anyways, it was a good gesture, even if it didn't save any money. She needed to get rid of the chef so she could afford to buy a tanning machine for the Governor's mansion. We all know how essential a good tan is in enforcing the principles of good governance.
Well, she got rid of the jet, right? Let's not quibble over the fact that she didn't actually sell the jet. It was sold, at about a $50,000 loss. And then she billed the state $43,000 in air travel for her and her family. That's what, $93,000 in less than 2 years. By the time her 4 year term is up her travel expenses might total exactly what the jet cost. Thought out that one, didn't she?
And she was savvy enough to recognize she's above the law, above the reach of the IRS, in billing the federal government $71,000 for her and her family to stay at home. While Alaska also has to pay for upkeep on the executive mansion set aside for the Governor. So I guess that didn't really save any money either, did it?
Most heartening to me, though, is that she and her husband, Todd sat down together and decided which items to veto from the budget. I don't know about you, but I'm relieved to know that the person most responsible for deciding on budget priorities in a Palin White House will be a high school graduate whose most crowning achievement is being able to drive snowmobiles in 2,000 mile races - and what an example that is, for teaching children about the importance of conserving energy!
In answering a question in the Gibson interview about foreign policy preparedness, Palin pointed to the absurdity of flaunting one's knowledge and experience; she claimed the people don't want to be governed by someone who has a stack- high list of accomplishments, who have met with world leaders. So wouldn't her approach towards economic issues be the same?
The people won't want those pointy-headed economists, people who have studied markets and mortgages and banking and insurance companies, etc. etc. making decisions.
All they want is someone who can go in and shake things up. Someone who knows nothing, and so isn't burdened by prior knowledge. She can see Russia from Alaska. She can see Wall Street on her TV(when she's not reading People magazine, or Us).
Forget Alan Greenspan, Toddie can do it.
Here's the simple way of looking at this situation. The meltdown on Wall Street is due, in a large part, to a lack of regulatory oversight.
The Republicans, McCain, Palin believe in nothing but deregulation.
So, you want those guys to be in charge of trying to fix this mess?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
Come on, you got to better then this!!
You make a ton of accusations in this post without a single citation.
Tough to response to a bunch of unsubstantiated "spouting off". It's like answering the questions "when did you stop beating your wife?"
The information is extremely easy to find. Most of the 'accusations' have been reported in the mainstream media, particularly the Alaska newspapers.
McCain's comments were covered by all the national media, so that's easy to look up. The figures on Palin's raising tax revenues is public information, again covered by Alaska and national media. I saw the information aobu the cook on one of the evening network news shows. The tanning machine purchase story is widely available and the only question about that is who paid - Palin isn't saying. The jet story - that, too, is easy to find. Do a Google search. The amount of money she billed the state for per diem is public information, but you do have to add the figures - $17,000 for her, $19,000 for Todd, $35,000 for the girls. The IRS billing info is at a law blog whose address I listed in a previous post. The transcripts of the Gibson interview are widely available. The information about Todd sitting with her and doing the line item veto in Alaska is widely available, as is information that he was cced on state business, and that he had access to confidential files. Do a google search. None of this is disputed by Palin, either.
A lot of this has been cited in previous posts, so look back on the history and you can find it.
Thanks for posting, though. It's good to hear a different opinion.
richard
The reason I asked for citations is that alot of this sounds like the points put out by blogs/websites like Palintruth.org, etc. In other blogs I frequent (bluemassgroup.com for instance) the burden of proof on a statement like some of the ones made is on the poster, not the responder. And typically other blogs are not viewed as good sources of info.
In interest of disclosure, I am not a big fan of McCain or Palin but they are the more conservative of the two choices. I will likely vote for them (holding my nose and with my eyes closed like when I ate broccoli as a kid) or Ron Paul if I want to throw away my vote. So if my defense of Palin seems half hearted, that is because it is.
That being said, lets look at this statement: "She took a town with a zero deficit and turned that into a multi-million dollar deficit. She raised tax revenues by over 30%."
While this is a true statement it is extremely misleading. At the time she supporting a sales tax, the town of Wasilla had no sales tax. They also had no services; there wasn't even a police department. The tax was a 2% sales tax solely for the purpose of establishing and funding a police department. Prior to this bill, the town had no police protection and it was 1992 not the 1800s wild west. Also, the sales tax came with a cap on the property tax that reduced those taxes by over 50%. (http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/background/story/526899.html).
You have a town with no services, no police, minimal schools, no public water and sewer, etc. And this is the forth largest population center in the STATE. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasilla,_Alaska) So the town decides, even votes (albeit by a small margin), to come into the current century. Starting with the Police Department with a budget of $1Mil. I don’t know if you have looked at your town’s spending but Randolph spends around $25 Mil on our force and were way over $10 mil in the 1990s. And this is somehow supposed to be knock on her conservative credentials?
I'll try and tackle some of your other statements latter.
JK
Post a Comment