McCain’s Continues To Distort Obama’s/Palin’s Earmarks
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Alaska, Barack, McCain, Money, Palin, Republicans
In an article that details how Palin’s Bridge To Nowhere claim is a lie, The Wall Street Journal also points out another fib that McCain has been throwing around on the campaign trail…
At a rally today, Sen. McCain again asserted that Sen. Obama has requested nearly a billion in earmarks. In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year.In comparison, Gov. Palin has requested $750 million in her two years as governor — which the AP says is the largest per-capita request in the nation.
Does McCain really want it to come out that while Arizona was last in the nation in pork per capita, Alaska was first?
Arizona, the second fastest growing state in the nation, will receive just $18.70 per capita in federal earmarks this fiscal year. By comparison, Alaska — with roughly a tenth of Arizona’s population — is set to receive $506.34 per capita, the highest in the nation, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group which tracks earmarks.The state of Alaska receives about three times as much as Arizona receives in actual dollars, $346 million to $119 million.
Not only that, when Palin was mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002, she secured $27M in earmarks for a town of around 7,000 people.
So let’s do the math…6 years…27 million dollars…about 4,500,000 per year…divided by 7,000 people…
Wasilla per capita earmark money during Palin’s tenure: $642.85.
And since Alaska was the richest pork state with $500+ per person, I’m guessing that $640+ number has to make Wasilla one of the richest pork towns/cities in the US.
Ahh, to be a Wasillan…
This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Alaska, Barack, McCain, Money, Palin, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I wish people would become a lot less focused on earmarks and a lot more focused on other wasteful spending. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of earmarks, but at around 30 billion a year in earmark spending, we’re talking about less than 1% of government spending. How come there is no outrage at the fact that we just handed two private mortgage companies 100+ billion in taxpayer dollars.
September 9th, 2008 at 3:08 am
I wish the “liberal” media would report more on these types of things.. i get so sick of hearing this “liberal media is out to get us” line from the McCain campaign. There isnt a news network around anymore that has the backbone to report on what needs attention, they only cover what will get them ratings. Olberman, Stewart and Colbert seem to be the only people in the news business with a spine anymore, and 2 of em are comedians..
September 9th, 2008 at 4:29 am
A couple notes.
1. To be fair, do mayors make earmarks? I thought that was a function of the legislative branch. They ask for things, but it’s up to the federal folks to decide where it fits nationally. I’d think she could take credit for creating a good budget, but it’s hard to give her credit or blame for earmarks.
2. Alaska’s a big state, with a scattered population. That means they have a big need for things like roads, sewers, etc that big cities pay for themselves due to their higher population concentrations. One could argue people shouldn’t have the rest of us pay for them, but Alaska’s one of those places that seems to be pretty strategic in most senses of the word, and inhospitable enough that keeping people there requires a subsidy of some sort.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:37 am
bellisaurius — Alaska is indeed a big state with a scattered population. It also has the 3rd highest GDP in the nation. They have such a cushion that its citizens pay no state income or sales tax.
It confounds me why a state with such massive resources and so few people needs earmarks at all.
September 9th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Mayors do not make earmarks, but Mayors do hire lobbyists to lobby for earmarks.
As long as the game is what it is, I actually think that’s a plus on her part–I want my Mayor playing the game and getting earmarks for my town, and any other funds he or she can gather.
My only problem is the dishonesty/hypocrisy of Palin claiming she is against something she is clearly for. She ought to be stepping up and saying, “This is the way the system works and I played the system to benefit my constituents!
Then, if she says, “But the system stinks, and I will change it.”
I realize that leaves her open to another attack (”She got hers and now she wants to stop anyone else…..”), but it would at least be defensible.
To deny/lie about the past makes me wonder if anything she says is true.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:14 am
There’s lobbying for earmarks, and then there’s the actual placing of earmarks.
Earmarks are a congressional practice, and blame for them should be laid at the feet of the congresscritters who traffic most eagerly in them. Alaska’s earmarks have everything to do with guys like the disgraced senator Stevens, and substantially less to do with governors and mayors. Even a child could understand this.
I’m sure the figure McCain is citing for Obama’s earmarks is the accumulated sum during his several years tenure in congress. Whichever dollar figure you use, it has no meaning to the unfamiliar unless it is given a context. The figures we need would show how piggish or how fastidious Obama has been in comparison to his colleagues.
Now, surely one reason that theobama folks are trying to link undercarder Palin to earmarks (even though she’s not a member of congress) is because the comparison of Obama to McCain is not favorable. Unfortunately for Democrats, McCain has been comparatively abstemious. What’s Biden’s record.
The most amusing part of this is how vociferously the Obama camp keeps going after Palin. It’ was already more than comical enough for me that Obamites were WAY, WAY, WAY off in their initial spin of the Palin choice.
And now that its apparent that she’s not going to be blithely dismissed and is in fact a potentially formidable game-changer, they are trying to cut her head off using whatever’s near at hand that seems sharp at a quick glance. This is just another recipe for looking bad while actually building her cred. Time to shut up until you can find something that might actually stick.
Unvetted Kritter
September 9th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Of course mayors don’t make earmarks. That’s why Palin went to Stevens for them. Governors don’t make earmarks. That’s why Palin kept going to Stevens. That’s why she backed the bridge to nowhere until the whole cost of it was going to be born by Alaska. Given the claims that Palin and the McCain campaign have made about her being the anti-Stevens it doesn’t take much thought to realize why this is an issue.
Oh, and the billion dollar figure was not a total. Well, it was total fiction, but that’s the only total it was.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Kritter, it isn’t the fact that she requested earmarks that the Democrats are going after, it is the fact that she has lied, and is lying, about the Bridge to Nowhere and how tough she will be on earmarks.
I think this is a completely valid point to go after her on…in her introduction speech to a nation (when announced as VP), she lied outright! And, it was Congress who killed the bridge to nowhere, not her, and even after it was killed she kept the several million Congress had given her for the bridge and reallocated them. There is no real way for Republican to spin this (though I am sure they will figure out something)…she lied about a major decision that is an important part of McCain’s campaign! This one might actually stick…
September 9th, 2008 at 8:50 am
[...] far, Sarah Palin’s record has provided a lot of fodder for gossip and speculation. I’ve detailed a lot of the hard facts on this blog, but now it’s time to address the stuff that isn’t [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Gee Kranky,
And I thought it was even a child could understand that someone opposed to earmarks would not try to get them by any means at her disposal–and if she somehow actually got them taking them was proof she supports them.
How silly of me to think that seeking and accepting them actually means she opposes earmarks. Good thing you were here to clear that up for all of us children who don’t know any better.
It must be very complicated inside your head. This issue is a real loser for the GOP, you should take their lead and pretend it doesn’t exist (kind of like foreign policy experience after the whole next to Alaska argument blew up in their faces).
September 9th, 2008 at 10:36 am
L, agreed. I think there’s something to the bridge story. Fact is, if someone else brings home the bacon, the tendency of the recipient is to fry it up in the pan, not reject it. I don’t recall any Governor from any state turning down fed money on principle.
So in this case her stand on the issue appears to be a matter of convenience. Nevertheless, blame for pork belongs at the feet of congress. I’d like to see reform, which is long overdue. And McCain and Palin are the ones talking about it.
Democrats, on the other hand, on the cusp of a possible democratic presidency with the backing of a substantial congressional majority, lack anything resembling eagerness.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Fair enough, Kritter. I agree that no executive would turn down pork. In terms of pork, earmarks consisted of $48 billion in 2007 while spending by the federal government was $2,730 billion, putting earmarks at 1.76% of government spending.
In principle, I think some earmarks are ridiculous. In real terms, they do not appear to be a real drag on our economy. What to me constitutes genuine reform? Well, earmarks are fine, but for real results we might look at defense spending (5x the next 5 nations’ spending combined), the necessity of changing social security (something as simple as pushing the age back?), and controlling the real debt now, so as to prevent interest payments from reaching 9% of our total spending (which they already have).
Anyway, the point is I don’t see controlling earmarks as big of a deal as other things, but I don’t want to see someone lie about their positions right off the bat.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
[...] Here are the facts. While Arizona is #50 in the nation when it comes to earmarks per capita, Alaska is #1. [...]