Once Again, Anything’s OK – If You’re Republican

Just as Keating Five McCain’s self-styled reformer image is hogwash, we find more evidence that the sweet lil’ ol’ Reformer of the North loves her some pork (h/t tristero).

Her fondness for frozen pork was first manifested when she was mayor of the small town of Wasilla:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group.

There was $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs, and $15 million for a rail project — all intended to benefit Palin’s town, Wasilla, located about 45 miles north of Anchorage.

Wow. All that for a town smaller than my ward precinct in St. Paul.

You’d think with all that Federal aid, the town would be rolling in dough. Yet when she left the mayor’s job in 2002, she left Wasilla with $20 million in long-term debt, or $3000 for every resident.

It’s not just her little town that’s benefitted from Palin’s longtime fondness for earmarks. In her short time as governor of Alaska, she’s continued the tradition of funnelling tons of pork up into the tundra:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin presents herself as an ally of presidential candidate John McCain when it comes to curbing wasteful government spending.

[…]

But under her leadership, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year’s federal budget, according to the website of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Palin has recently been publicly critical of requests made in past years by Stevens and others for $223 million in federal funds for a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska, to Gravina Island, calling it “the Bridge to Nowhere,” a derogatory label critics attached to the project.

As a candidate for governor in 2006, she backed funding for the bridge.

After her election, however, she killed the project, saying she would use the federal funds for other purposes.

As mayor of the small city of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin appears to have made use of the system she now decries, hiring a Washington lobbyist, Steven Silver, to represent the town. Years ago, Silver worked as an aide to Stevens.

One is tempted to speculate, Peggy-Noonan-style, on just how much of that money has managed to find its way into the pockets of the Palin family.

The most amusing thing about all this? Palin’s not only a typical “get government out of my life” Republican, she was once a top member of a party that hates America (and paying their fair share of the tax monies they inhale) so much that they want Alaska to secede from it.