Today's weekly standard includes a column by Fred "the Beetle" Barnes, claiming to disprove that Palin is lying about the bridge to nowhere. Instead, he proved that she IS lying.
Barnes' shorthand strawman version of the complaint about Palin is that Palin insists that "as governor of Alaska, she killed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere," and he cites a timeline that he says proves that Palin is correct and that her critics are wrong about her lying about it.
The timeline Barnes lays out is as follows:
August 2005 -- $223 million earmark included in the highway bill. The earmark is controversial and "didn't last long."
Late 2005 -- The earmark for the bridge is removed but the money continues to be directed to Alaska as "undesignated funds." Under federal formula rules, only $100 million of the project can be funded. Completing the project will cost $300 million in state funds.
December 2005 -- then-governor Murkowski orders the project to proceed. The state Department of Transportation will not proceed without the state portion of the funding appropriated.
2006 -- Candidate Palin endorses the project, essentially agreeing with primary opponent Governor Murkowski. She later wins the primary and general elections and is sworn in as governor in December.
2007 -- for various reasons Palin began to have doubts about the value of the bridge project. The project by this time (Barnes notes) was a "target of national criticism" and "resented in other regions of Alaska." She figured out that the project was very expensive and that the added cost would be borne by Alaska rather than the Federal taxpayers.
But of course, her claim is not that she killed the bridge project -- it's the following (from a transcript of her remarks):
As governor, I've championed earmark reform to stop Congress from wasting public money on things that don't necessarily serve the public interest. I told Congress thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere, that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves. -- Sarah Palin
So first -- Nothing in the timeline above suggests that she championed "earmark reform." Indeed, had the entire project been paid for from the federal coffers rather than the state's, there is no reason to think it wouldn't have been well under construction before she even took office. Her predecessor approved it but the Alaska Highway Department refused to move without the funds guaranteed.
Second, it's hard to "say thanks but no thanks" to a project where the specific funding had already been withdrawn. What was she saying no thanks to? She took the money.
Indeed, the "thanks but no thanks" story is completely backwards. It was Congress that told Alaska, "if you want to build that bridge, you will build it yourselves." Rather than a story of Palin's looking out for the Federal taxpayers, the story is of the Congress (which by the time Palin was elected was in transition to the hands of the Democratic party) closing down the last gasp of Ted Stevens' bridge project.
Really, the bridge to nowhere project is a great example of Palin's governing style. It's all about getting as much as possible for her base and her friends, and to the greatest extent screwing anyone outside of those two groups.
Her tax policy in Wasilla is a good example. She proudly states that she cut property taxes in Wasilla. At the same time, she raised the regressive sales tax. The reason? Property tax, by definition, is paid only by residents who own land in the town. Sales tax is paid by anyone who shops in the many "big box" stores lining the highway in Wasilla. So her tax scheme was to spread the tax burden to people who rent (more likely to be Democrats) or who live outside of town and shop in Wasilla (not voters in mayoral races) and drop the tax for property owners (wealthier and certainly qualified voters).
The Bridge is worth building as long as it's paid for by those of us in the lower 48 states -- but it's not worth it if Alaskans pay for it. And bear in mind -- "Alaskans pay for it" is a relative term, because the state is largely financed by oil and gas revenues. As governor, Palin raised the tax on oil and gas -- mostly the cost is passed on to the purchasers of the oil -- and has raised the rebate checks each Alaskan receives from their state. Oddly enough, the refund checks of around $1000 apiece are pretty comparable to the per-capita federal expenditure in Alaska.