Palin's pork requests confound reformer image
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
John McCain touts Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a force in the his battle against earmarks and entrenched power brokers, but under her leadership the state this year asked for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects from one of McCain's top adversaries: indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
That's more than any other state received, per person, from Congress for the current budget year, and runs counter to the reformer image that Palin and the McCain campaign are pushing. Other states got just $34 worth of local projects per person this year, on average, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based watchdog group.
Palin actually reduced the state government's requests for special projects this year to 31 earmarks totaling $198 million, about $295 person, in the wake of President Bush's demand for a cutback in earmarks.
The state government's earmark requests to Congress in her first year in office exceeded $550 million, more than $800 per resident. But there's only so much Palin could do with state bureaucrats used to a free-flowing spigot of federal dollars from Washington.
"I have championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress," Palin said in her vice presidential campaign trail debut last week.
(Continued here.)
John McCain touts Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a force in the his battle against earmarks and entrenched power brokers, but under her leadership the state this year asked for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects from one of McCain's top adversaries: indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
That's more than any other state received, per person, from Congress for the current budget year, and runs counter to the reformer image that Palin and the McCain campaign are pushing. Other states got just $34 worth of local projects per person this year, on average, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based watchdog group.
Palin actually reduced the state government's requests for special projects this year to 31 earmarks totaling $198 million, about $295 person, in the wake of President Bush's demand for a cutback in earmarks.
The state government's earmark requests to Congress in her first year in office exceeded $550 million, more than $800 per resident. But there's only so much Palin could do with state bureaucrats used to a free-flowing spigot of federal dollars from Washington.
"I have championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress," Palin said in her vice presidential campaign trail debut last week.
(Continued here.)
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