McCain's Earmark Lie
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| Mon, 09-15-2008 - 9:19pm |

McCain's Earmark Lie: Palin actually grubs $1 mil/day as Gov. by Kagro X
Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 03:00:11 PM PDT
Last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, hadn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. But state records show Gov. Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years.
It's been 652 days since Earmark Queen Sarah Palin took office as Governor of Alaska.
In that time, she's hustled for $453,000,000 in federal lipstick pork.
That's $694,785.28 a day. Six hundred ninetey-four thousand, seven hundred and eight five dollars and twenty-eight cents. Every day. Even Sundays!
Palin was grubbing six hundred ninetey-four thousand, seven hundred and eight five dollars and twenty-eight cents out of the federal trough on the very day when John McCain looked America in the eye and said she was taking zero.
And she took it again today, too.
And she took it on every one of the 312 nights she spent at home and billed the Alaskan taxpayers for it.
So why say it's a million dollars a day? Well, first, let me show you what Slick Sarah Palin is telling people:
On the campaign trail, Gov. Palin has repeatedly attacked Sen. Obama on earmarks. "Our opponent has requested nearly one billion dollars in earmarks in three years. That's about a million for every working day," she said at a rally in Albuquerque, N.M.
Ohhhh, this feels like it's going to get embarrassing in a second....
And, behold! Look what "The Math" says!
It is difficult to compare Sen. Obama's earmark record with Gov. Palin's -- their states differ in size, for instance, and the two candidates play different roles in the process. But using the same calculation that the McCain campaign uses, the total amount of earmarked dollars divided by the number of working days while each held office (assuming a five-day workweek, every week, for both), Gov. Palin sought $980,000 per workday, compared with roughly $893,000 for Sen. Obama.
Not only is Palin taking much more, but oh my word if the million dollar figure doesn't actually fit her sooooo much better than the person she's trying to use it against! What a surprise!
So that's almost a million dollars a day, whether she showed up at the office or not. A million bucks, plus $60 in her pocket for defrosting one of her own mooseburgers for lunch.
And really, Palin must be asking herself, why not chisel the Alaska state government a little bit? After all:
The state's earmark requests stand out in part because its state government is among the wealthiest in the U.S. Flush with oil and gas royalties, it doesn't impose income or sales taxes. In fact, money flows the other way: Every man, woman and child this year got a check for $3,200.
Gosh, but they're such rugged individualists up there! They're gonna launch themselves into orbit with those bootstraps, don'tcha know?
A million dollars a day. From you and me. Plus $3,200 in the bank for each one of 'em. And $60 in Sarah's pocket for every lunch at home. (Like every working mom, of course!)
It's the new fiscal responsibility, in John McCain's seven house-owning, $5 million middle class living world!

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*** The right wing keeps trying to belittle Obama's career, both as a community organizer and politician.
Granted, it is tough to belittle nothing.
*** Here are the facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_obama
Looks like they had to pad it a bit to make it look like more than a few sentences. If you squeeze and squeeze and leave a lot of stuff out, I'm sure you can get McCain's record into a paragraph...a really BIG paragraph.
*** Seems pretty good to me - this is exactly the kind of faith-based work that the right praises except when the left does it.
We support Obama's community organizing, we wish he would continue doing it...as what he's qualified for...being a community organizer.
*** Obama stopped organizing because he got the chance to go to the most prestigious law school in America, after which he went back to helping people and into politics. Again, seems pretty good to me.
It wasn't a prize...unless affirmative action is a prize...he chose to go to law school because community organizing wasn't getting him up the ladder as fast as his ambition wanted to go. Once he was done, he made some bucks working for law firms before setting his sights on politics...and power.
*** As for Obama's supposed inexperience as a politician, again here are the facrs. As the clear underdog, he won a hard fought primary with over 17.5 million votes against one of the preeminent politicians of our time. Obama won his Senate election in Illinois, our 5th largest state - where he again started as an underdog - in a landslide with over 3.5 million votes. That's over 21 million votes, not to mention all his other votes in the state legislature.
Actually, he played "dirty pool"...typical "Chicago politics." He pulled every "technical" game in the book to narrow the field and get himself elected. It's a rough and tumble game. and Obama played it well...but ambition and tactics don't make you ready to deal with a nuclear Iran.
*** So the right-wing is trying to diminish Obama's experience comparing him to Palin, who has received well under a million votes her entire career which consists mostly of mayor of a small town and a short term as governor of one of our smallest states.
Um...you're saying that Alaska is a "small state?" LOL! Granted, we're not talking Texas here...but she's been a Governor...in charge of state budgets, politics, national guard, etc...while Obama has been in charge of...nothing. In his entire career he's never run anything...but a campaign...and even then, ALL of his campaigns have been run by managers, not Obama himself.
*** For every vote Palin has received during her career, Obama has received over 20 more. And the right-wing is claiming Palin is more experienced.
The experience is in the "doing"...not the "voting." Palin has actual every-day-executive experience...Obama...not so much.
I like your conclusion with all those lying smears about Obama - all that Marxist stuff sounds like McCarthy. He would be proud. Good stuff.
By the way, you are confused about what Obama said. He never said he was against earmarks. He said we needed more balance in Washington. That's why lobbyists don't work for his campaign while the McCain campaign has got hundreds of them, including 83 that represented Wall Street.
And you are confused about Palin. The fact that she cut some items in the Alaska budget does not mean she cut earmarks from Washington DC. To the contrary, she has consistently tried to suck all the money she could out of DC. She didn't kill the bridge to nowhere. After it was dead because other people killed it over her objections she lied that she killed it. And she lied that she was against earmarks. So I suggest you check your accusations and facts a bit more next time friend.
"a woman with values and morals"
How do you explain her ongoing lie that she killed the bridge to nowhere and is against earmarks? That seems to be the certerpiece of her campaign.
How do you explain her just a few months ago in July giving a speech praising a preacher who is a witch hunter for using his spiritual power to help get her elected governor?
Do these values include making women have the babies of men who raped them? Just want to clarify for the record.
Thanks.
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