Widely touted during the Republican National Convention was Sarah Palin's experience with a $11 billion budget. Every time I heard this number I was shocked that a state with the population of 683,000 had such a large operational budget.
"In charge of a $11 billion budget"...really? Well no. Alaska's current approved operational budget is $5,694,134,400 (warning link to pdf file).
So where does this $11 billion figure come from? According to Alison Fitzgerald of Bloomberg this is a predicted revenue from the windfall taxes of Alaskan oil.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who has joined the Republican national ticket as a tax-cutter, was a driving force in raising a tax on oil companies last year that will help swell the state's budget surplus.
The increase backed by the Republican vice presidential nominee will, at current prices, raise oil revenue to $11 billion this year -- almost twice what the state needs to fund its government -- state documents show. Alaska also has gotten more money from the federal government than its residents pay in taxes -- $1.75 per tax dollar in 2006, the most recent year available, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington research group.
In fact Palin has never handled a $11 billion budget. And Alaska is running in a massive surplus, yet Alaska is taking more Federal money than its residents are paying in Federal income taxes.
No wonder most of the people in Alaska love Sarah, she sent each of them a $2,100 check from her windfall tax program and is predicting a $1,200 increase to that this year.
So with this huge surplus Palin must have also at least modestly increased social services...right? Nope.
Palin, in her vice-presidential acceptance speech Sept. 3, touted her fiscal credentials by saying she trimmed a half- billion dollars from the state budget. She used a line-item veto to cut hundreds of grants, including $300,000 for a Catholic Community Services family counseling and adoption program, $6,200 to repair the sidewalk in front of an Anchorage elementary school and $6 million to replace an aging Anchorage fire station.
`Hockey Mom'
Palin, a self-proclaimed ``hockey mom,'' also cut funding for a local hockey association to buy a blade sharpener for its Zamboni machine.
The cuts angered some lawmakers
But wait Alaska's budget is predicted to increase by 58%. And not all of her Republican buddies are too happy about this. But don't dare question the judgment of Sarah's budget or face her wrath.
But spending increases nevertheless have been substantial under Palin, who has had a Republican-controlled Legislature to work with. The size of the budget made some of her fellow Republicans in the Legislature nervous, with two House Republicans saying they would have voted against this year’s spending plan had the GOP caucus not had rules in place to punish those who stray from the party on that one key issue.
"We can’t sustain it," said Republican Rep. Ralph Samuels of Anchorage.
While all of Palin's budget increases were not misguided they just weren't too hard to pass, due to Alaska's massive income increase with the skyrocketing prices of oil. She's had the easiest time of governing in Alaska compared to her previous predecessors.
Palin has, without question, had it easier than her immediate predecessors, who struggled with assembling budgets in times of low oil prices — even down to $9 per barrel back in the 1990s.
In December 2005, when Murkowski presented his final budget as governor, a barrel of Alaska North Slope crude had risen to about $55, a vast improvement from the first part of his term. A year later, for Palin’s first budget, a barrel was selling for roughly the same price. But by the middle of 2007, the oil price trajectory went steeply upward, hitting $96 in November.
Palin introduced her second budget in December 2007. The price of oil hit $100 for the first time in February 2008.
Even Karen Rehfeld, director of Palin’s Office of Management and Budget, has said this is not usual.
Rehfeld acknowledges Palin’s good fortune in not having to make the difficult budget decisions like those who came before her. "I think we are in unprecedented times."
So I guess this is being a "fiscal conservative".