I decided it might be a good idea to compile a list of all the frauds and fabrications in Sarah Palin's record with regard to economic issues. I just sent the following e-mail out to family members and friends, in the hope that it will be propagated further.
None of this info will be news to Kossacks, but I haven't seen it all summarized in one place, with source links provided.
I strongly fought the temptation to add in stuff about Palin's attempts to have books banned and to fire the town librarian, as well as other "culture war" stuff. But the point of this message is to target self-defined "fiscal conservatives", so I avoided all cultural and social issues.
Note that I also made sure to use a variety of links, including to "conservative" media outlets (Boston Herald, Wall Street Journal, Voice of the Times)... and none to strongly liberal sites like dKos.
I also didn't mention Bush anywhere.
If you find this message useful, please free free to forward it... especially to any people you know who consider themselves fiscal conservatives. We need to get the truth out.
Subject: Sarah Palin's Alaskanomics
This article from Time Magazine is a pretty good outline of how Alaska is the ultimate welfare state: it receives more federal tax dollars than any other state in the union. It gives its residents handouts, thanks to a windfall profits tax on oil (a tax supported by Obama and opposed by McCain!).
And Sarah Palin has been at the forefront of making all of this happen:
Sarah Palin's Alaskanomics
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1839724-2,00.html
I've compiled a list of a few other things not mentioned in the article... with links to sources backing it all up.
- She was in favor of the "bridge to nowhere" before it become a national embarrassment; then she turned against it. But guess what? She kept the money, and spent it on other road projects (including the "road to the bridge to nowhere", which currently leads up to an empty beach).
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB122090791901411709.html
Boston Herald
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1116208&srvc=2008campaign&posit
ion=12
- She didn't sell the previous governor's plane on eBay. It was posted a few times, but no one bought it. Ultimately, state officials sold it at a $600,000 loss.
Washington Post
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/05/plane_not_sold_on_ebay.html
- She didn't even fire the governor's personal chef! She just transferred her to another department in state government (where she is still a chef).
Voice of the Times - "A Conservative Voice For Alaskans"
http://www.voiceofthetimes.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&editoria
l=1
Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/288561.html
- She billed the state for a "per diem" travel allowance, for nights spent at her own home.
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090803088.html?hpid=topnew
s
- She talks about being opposed to federal pork-barrel spending. But as mayor of Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist who raked in $27 million in federal dollars for the town of 6,700 residents. (That's $4029 of our taxes given to each Wasillan.)
The Political Chase
http://politicalchase.com/2008/09/02/palin-hired-lobbyist-to-get-millions-in-earmarks/
- When she started as mayor of Wasilla, the town was debt-free. When she left, the town had $20 million in debt.
Politico.com
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12987.html
Almost her entire record as a "reformer" and a "fiscal conservative" is sheer fiction. No wonder they are not letting her do any press interviews...
UPDATE: In the comments, Pacific NW Mark suggested that I show the full URLs for each link. I tried to do this originally, but Scoop (the dKos software) truncated them. I've gone back and made the publication titles into links, and the URLs into plain text. Hopefully they will display in full. It's important to put those complete URLs into any e-mail version of this that you send out!
UPDATE 2: FYI, I just discovered that if you put a URL in your diary as plain text, Scoop will apparently try to make it into a link, and still will not display it in full. I found a workaround: replace the first colon (in "http://") with the ASCII code for that character (which is :). Instead of "http://", start any URL you want to display in full as text with "http://". That should do the trick.
UPDATE 3: OK, maybe that didn't work after all. I'll keep trying. If anyone knows any sure-fire solution to this problem, let me know. --Hmm... maybe the problem was that I edited the diary again after first doing the : trick. All the :s have turned back into regular colons. I'll try again.