From USA today- Wasilla AK, population 5K, got 8 million in pork, typical alaska scam.
Palin backed 'bridge to nowhere' in 2006
ST.PAUL — In her nationally televised speech accepting the job as John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress" and opposed federal funding for a controversial bridge to a sparsely populated island.
"I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere," Palin said Friday in Ohio, using the critics' dismissive name of the project. "'If our state wanted a bridge,' I said, 'we'd build it ourselves.'"
While running for governor in 2006, though, Palin backed federal funding for the infamous bridge, which McCain helped make it a symbol of pork barrel excess.
And as mayor of the small town of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002, Palin also hired a Washington lobbying firm that helped secure $8 million in congressionally directed spending projects, known as earmarks, according to public spending records compiled by the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste and lobbying documents.
Wasilla's lobbying firm was headed by Steven Silver — a former chief of staff to Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a key proponent of the bridge project.
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