TheAgitator.com
“We Did Well!!!”
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008The Washington Independent combs through public records in Wasilla, Alaska and finds a news clipping reporting how various Alaska towns fared in the annual federal earmark sweepstakes. There, in Sarah Palin’s own handwriting, is a big circle around the graph noting that Wasilla’s $2.5 million take led the region.
"We did well!!!" Palin boasts with triple exclamation marks, adding that the article didn’t include an additional $1 million in federal money to pave the Wasilla airport.
That’s $3.5 million in federal earmarks for water treatment, airport paving, and "pedestrian walkways" in a town of 9,000.
Meticulously vetted! Has bravely risked her political career fighting earmarks and government waste!
Oh geez, there goes Radley with the sexist attacks again!
In fairness, those are state funds, not federal funds (according to her handwriting). “Only” the $1mil for paving was federal.
That’s about $400 per person. I suspect the money sent to Washington in federal taxes per capita was much higher. In today’s environment, nothing gets sent back to you unless you fight for it as an earmark. So let’s stop getting our bowels in an uproar: I don’t see the Sarah Palin Center for Eskimo Studies, or the Palin Art Museum, or the Sarah Palin Museum of Husky Sled Dogs (a la Robert Byrd and Hillary Clinton) on the list. What this mayor did was get a reasonable amount of money back for her citizens for critically important civic needs.
By the way, there’s no need to put “pedestrian walkways” in Reuters scare quotes. That’s just technical jargon for sidewalks. Hardly a luxury.
So, where’s the waste?
“great unknown” — you should try looking at the data first. According to the Census Bureau, for the last year in which numbers have been reported (2006), Alaska ranked only behind Mississippi and Louisiana (nos. 2 and 1, respectively) in per capita federal spending. You might recall that 2006 was one year after Katrina, which didn’t have much of an impact on Alaska, whose per capita expenditure ($13,805) was more than twice that of the lowest, Nevada ($5852). (See http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/governments/011813.html.)
In addition, Alaska led the US in earmark (pork) spending, at $555.54 per person, more than two and a half times the amount of the next highest (Hawaii, at $220.63) (although McCain’s Arizona ranked last, at $14.17 per person). (See http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2008porkpercap.)
This is on top of the Alaska Permanent Fund (essentially a sovereign wealth fund, like that of Abu Dhabi) dividend paid to each resident of Alaska, amounting in 2007 to $1654.
To find out how interested Sarah Palin really is in wanting to help the poor suffering gasoline buyers in the US, ask her to cut the APF royalty on crude oil pumped out of Prudhoe Bay. I think you’ll get the same answer as from the Saudis.
Since most of Alaska is owned by the federal government our resource extraction has been very limited. If we have to keep the state pristine and wild for those in the lower 48 who will never visit it but like the idea of ‘wild Alaska’, then it is only fair you pay to keep it that way. The highest gasoline prices in the nation (including SF) are in Anchorage, that’s in a state with an *cent/gallon gas tax.
Free the state to do logging, mining and oil drilling and we won’t need earmarks.
I have to say versus the numbers base, it sounds much ado about nothing, I am as Libertarian as the next guy probably more, but all I want is my dollars back in my town where they belong, not somewhere else and I don’t want more than I paid. Granted I accept they shouldn’t be taken in the first place, but I suppose that is why I have a more pragmatic acceptance. If I send a dollar to DC I want $.99 back and maybe a dollar if possible, but maybe it’s just because I am from AZ where the average $1.00 gets $.70 back and yes I know McCain’s lack of work that represents.
In the end that doesn’t bother me, sorry.
Um, let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Should anyone be shocked that a local politician in 1999 (or any year, for that matter) is glad that her town secured federal or state funding? Isn’t it a little more useful to think about what she and McCain think about such practices now, or – more specifically – which of the competing tickets is most likely to curtail these types of practices?
For both Thomas and Great Unknown
You make good arguments. But that is not the arguments McCain and Palin are making are they? They are representing her as someone who fights earmarks, taxes, and profligate government spending and that just doesn’t seem to be the case. Were she running on a “I hate government spending but I’ll fight like hell for my state’s share and even more if I can get it” plank, I would at least admire the honesty as I am disgusted by the sentiment.
At I believe Alaska gets something like a $1.40 back from DC for every buck they send. They are running a net profit on federal taxes. I cannot find the citation on this and am open to correction.
“water treatment, airport paving, and “pedestrian walkways” in a town of 9,000.”
What? Those 9,000 want clean water? Bastards. Sidewalks and airport paving? Good god. Here’s a question. How much more does any of that cost do to unfunded mandates from the federal government? Now you find a earmark for a barbed wire musueam, or some big-ass ugly sculpture or something like that then you got a point. Until then you’re letting your Bush hatred spill over to Palin.
Um, let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
That’s a good policy, generally, but I think we should also make the hypocritical, religiously fundamental, and power-hungry the enemy of the good, as well.
Compare Wasilla’s “take” in the pork-barrel game to other cities, and you will see that they don’t come off that rich. Cottage Grove, OR, a slightly smaller town in uber-Left Lane County, OR, got over twice as much for sewer and water improvements, for example.
Also the time frame has to be considered. Some of these pork-pies take many years to get, and the cost-factor gets involved as well: add 30% to ANY infrastructure job just because it is Up North.
After all those things are factored in, Wasilla seems to be a piker in the pork game.
Last but NOT least, ANY person who has been a municipal or State executive is going to have been involved in the pork game, so unless you want to espouse the extreme position that prior government experience DIS-qualifies one from running for office, EVERYONE’S a porker.
Preface: I’m an anarcho-capitalist, so this is not a defense of big government.
Would someone kindly explain the visceral hatred of earmarks to me? All an earmark is is a set of instructions for a federal outlay. Congressman X puts in a request for $Y to fund Z project in district W. The alternative is Congress assigning money to the various executive branch agencies for disbursement.
I think of it like writing a check. Congress can either put a name on the Payee (earmark) or make the check out for cash (executive agency disbursement).
Reducing earmarks is entirely unrelated to reducing spending; they are independent of one another. Earmarks can go up in times of shrinking government, and earmarks can go down in times of growing government.
I don’t understand why the focus is on the disbursement method and not the spending itself. You’re spinning your wheels fighting over the mechanism by which money is handed out.
Bruce– if the citizens of the US (who bought Alaska from Russia) want to leave it in a pristine and wild condition, why should it cost anything to “keep it that way”? I’m also not sure why Alaskans’ mere proximity to federally-owned lands gives them any greater moral voice in how those lands are used.
Rivrdog– I’m not complaining about Wasilla’s earmarks per se. I’m complaining that Palin, like her ideological forebears– self-proclaimed western individualists Reagan, Bush, and Cheney– is a consummate hypocrite. If she wants to play the Washington game, great, more power to her and her state. But then she shouldn’t lecture eastern “elites” about how virginal and pure she is on pork barrel politics. (At least McCain walks the walk when it comes to earmarks, and Arizona pays the price for that.)
Ditto for her supposed concern over our energy independence. Her only concern is the fact that Prudhoe Bay output has dropped over 50% from its peak in 1970 and will continue dropping, evenutally with catastrophic effects on state revenues. Again, she’s right to be concerned, and she might even be right to push for opening up more reserves in the north, but she’s lying when she says that she’s taking that position out of concern for our energy independence.
As for her continued flirtation with nutcases like the Alaska Independence Party, well, that alone should disqualify her from any position of trust in the federal government.
State officials are expected to think of the state first, not the nation.
The issue here is not whether earmarks are good or bad. Palin’s supposed strengths and qualifications are her opposition to corruption and irresponsible earmarks and it begins to look as if she fights corruption only when it is politically expedient to do so.
According this
story in Reason, Alaska gets $1.84 in federal funds for every $1.00 in federal taxes paid (stats from the Tax Foundation). That means that the rest of the 49 states are funding programs in Alaska that do nothing for people in those 49 states. Actually, it’s the states that are net losers in this game that are the ones who are paying for it.
I’m not an expert in anarcho-capitalism, but it seems to me that making people pay for things far removed from their own interests is an ancap no-no. If we accept taxation at all (which I thought ancaps didn’t), I’d think at least that local projects be funded locally, in these cases, via Alaska state taxes. But in a state with one of its Senate seats occupied by Ted Stevens, a local Alaskan politician gets to play a devil’s dream of a game: cut or never institute local taxes but fund all the pet projects anyway using other (disinterested) people’s money. Your constituents will love you and you can call yourself a fiscal conservative.
Earmarks are a sick game. And if we grant that at some point, Palin was really fighting the game, based on the numbers, the best we can say is that she failed miserably.
“Last but NOT least, ANY person who has been a municipal or State executive is going to have been involved in the pork game, so unless you want to espouse the extreme position that prior government experience DIS-qualifies one from running for office, EVERYONE’S a porker.”
Riverdog: Fine, what Ben said and I said above. Let her run on an “I am just like everyone else” platform or better “I’ll look after Americans like I looked after Alaskans” platform. That’s nice and positive and pragmatic. But this constant portrayal of her as a reformer and a Maverick Side-Kick is just bunk. If Wasilla needs sewers and they can get federal dollars to pay for them, fine. That’s how the game is played. But don’t play the game like a champ, win your spoils, and then claim you are some sort of Born again reformer who says she was against things she wasn’t and stood up to corruption AFTER they are indicted (but ran a 527 group for them BEFORE they were indicted.)
It’s all so opportunistic and I don’t see how people against pork can rest easy at night trusting Palin and McCain will deliver. McCain used to include Robertson and Falwell as agents of intolerance. How is that going?
She’s still hot.
Gets my vote.
Interesting how somebody always fails to mention that usually the money for airport improvements comes from the Airport Improvement Program (AIP). The AIP is a user funded program. This means that it’s funding comes from a surcharge on things like landing fees and airline tickets. This program’s funding was kept seperate until 1994, when the Clinton Administration dumped it into the General fund to make the deficit look better.
CL,
Making people do anything is an ancap no-no.
Thanks, Jim Collins- #19 that is exactly correct- you must be a Pilot!. No one else in the country seems to know this.
Thomas Blair,
I agree with you that taxation is theft (and I’m not an ancap). However, I do believe that earmarks help increase spending because they allow states to fund local projects without actually having to ask the local people for the money. People will think twice about paying for something if they know they will be shelling out the cash for it. But if the other 49 states are paying for your storm drain upgrade, of course you’ll take it. And if you’re a local politician, it looks like you give your people things for free. This virtuous cycle doesn’t seem to have any built-in braking mechanism — the monster can only grow.
Ben
No other state in the union has such outside influence on their resource management, and no other state does it as well as Alaska. Imagine if Alaska agitated to keep a refinery from being built in NJ or a port from being built in New York. Our fisheries are the best in the world, our oilfield on the N. Slope is environmentally friendly, witness the caribou calving under pipelines. Yet, the busybodies in NJ, NY and other parts east of the Mississippi, KNOW what is best for the state. They talk about the boggy mosquito haven kknown as ANWR as if it were the Garden of Eden. Virtually no one goes there, other than the few natives that call it home because it is flat, boring and filled with noxious insects that can suck a pint of blood a day out of caribou.
The land was bought for a pittance, there were people living here when it was purchased. They weren’t consulted when Russia ‘found’ it and more than when America ‘bought’ it. It wasn’t purchased to be a giant park, it was bought for it’s resources and in small part it’s strategic location (not nearly as important then as it was 50 years ago).
Industrious and hard working people moved up here expecting to be able to make a living, to carve their niche out of the wilderness if necessary, but the feds and the environmentalists have increasingly locked the resources up. They’ve closed most logging down in the SE decimating the jobs and communities there. They refuse to open up the most promising land for oil exploration. Mining is fought at every turn by outside groups. You just can’t take people’s livelihoods away and then walk away.
Bruce, I’m sure you’re correct that most people migrating to Alaska were (or are) industrious and hard-working, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re asking for something from the federal government– whether its the sale or the use of federal lands– purchased by the entire American people. I still don’t see why proximity to that property gives Alaskans (except native Alaskans) a more substantial claim on it than I or any other citizen in the lower 48 should have.
Your comment on ANWR misses the point of ANWR completely. It need not be a “garden of eden” for humans to be of value to the world. It was set up as a wildlife, not a human refuge. You might disagree with the value of wildlife refuges (biologists do not), but the fact that no human being enjoys it doesn’t mean that we should open it up to exploitation.
Would you advocate opening ANWR to drilling if a precondition of doing so was dissolving the Alaska Permanent Fund and renouncing state interest in oil royalties? If not, isn’t that what all the talk about ANWR is about– money?
No raven, I’m not a pilot. Just an ex-aircraft mechanic with a degree in airport management. We had a local issue a few years ago about the expansion of a runway at our County Airport. Some lawyer was cleaning up on retainers because he had people believing that they were going to start operating airliners out of there, when they couldn’t because of other restrictions. He had so many people misinformed that it wasn’t even funny. He probably made about $250,000 on the deal.
Somebody needs to teach the difference between pork and legitimate funding. If you want an example of pork Goggle Byrd from West Virginia. He’s got more pork than most butcher shops.
Still no one has explained to me why the FEDERAL government should be paying for a LOCAL sidewalk….
Ben
What state do you live in? What % of it is privately owned? The reality up here is that the feds haven’t sold the land the way they have in all the other states for development.
We are a resource state, we don’t have much in the way of manufacturing (distance) farming or ranching (too cold for most crops), resources are our livelihood and folks who have zero stake in the game are controlling it. It costs you nothing to lock our resources away.
Anyway, I can see that we will never agree, but I live here and you live there, you feel you have the right to tell Alaskans how to manage their state, we don’t feel we have the right to tell you how to manage yours.
Isn’t that the goal of mayors? Get as much from the fed as possible? After all, that’s why there’s 70MPH speed limits, click-it-or-ticket laws, ‘mandatory’ school testing via no child left behind.
“She’s still hot.
Gets my vote.”
I just voted your post up, TPG.
Goddammit: in times like these, I’ll always back a man who’s clear about what he’s about.
Radley,
I think you’re way off base her. Federal regulations can mandate upgrading water and sewage treatment and a lot of the small town have plants that are functioning probably good enough, but will not meet new federal standards. I’ve seen a local town of 20,000 face severe fines for simply not painting an outside stairway. State and federal bureaucratic power trip inspectors can make life miserable for small towns just because they can. Also I’ve landed at a lot of small city airports that the pavement is eroding and weeds are growing in the middle of the runway. Bad weather in a climate like Alaska can deteriorate runways quickly. Sometimes it is all a small town can do to keep the streets patched. The only reason some small towns have an airport in the 1st place is a federal grant helped with enough money to build one. As far as the sidewalks go, my small town of 1500 is getting all new sidewalks from a grant. These sidewalks are from the 1930s and 40s and were in very bad shape. Often due to the cost of complying with regulations small towns no longer have the funds for such projects.
And I live in Texas.
“That’s $3.5 million in federal earmarks for water treatment, airport paving, and “pedestrian walkways” in a town of 9,000. ”
Radly, you actually disappoint me with this one, and I’m no longer easily disappointed.
You were just there and expected DIRTY drinking water? Gravel, at best for a landing surface?, and no sidewalks?
I moved to my town of 4300 in 1960, it had many sidewalks way the hell back then! It’s got more today and we are a massive community of almost 7000! Oh and even with the shit taste crap the feds require to be placed into public water, I’d bet our tap water is FAR beyond the swill you have available! But the well water I’ve been drinking from is again FAR beyond what this tiny town can provide as well.
Near as I can tell, SaraCuda is one kick ass person! She will need some help and guidance to become the leader we desire. Get used to hearing her name and working with her. 12 years is a long time in anybody’s lives and I’m sorta bettin, that is the amount of time she has left on the national stage.
I could be wrong.
Of course, the Federal government should not be sending Federal tax money to the states, but if they are I can’t see why local officials or Congressmen (including Ron Paul) shouldn’t try to get some money for their states or districts. Sarah Palin should, according to Mr. Balko, apparantly have refused the money and let George Bush decide how it was going to be spent. This seems a bit nutty to me.
Rather than getting his undies in a twist over earmarks, Mr. Balko should encourage Congress not to pass these huge spending bills in the first place. Then there would be little issue of earmarks.
And I’d like to ask Mr. Balko if he cashed his tax rebate check? If so, why is that okay but taking money for earmarks isn’t?
The federal government is subsidizing small towns that can’t take care of their own infrastructure through local and state taxes. Does the word rent-seeking mean anything? If a business can’t make a profit or at least break even, should the federal government subsidize them as well?
[...] Republican Death Spiral Watch » Lies About Sarah Palin September 4, 2008 Radley Balko takes on the Sarah Palin lies: The Washington Independent combs through public records in Wasilla, Alaska and finds a news [...]