..rid themselves of the anchor they've got around their necks.
That anchor looks a lot more like a flotation device....
"But earmarks have never been a dirty word in Alaska, a huge state dotted with small communities that have enormous dollar needs for sewers, roads and other projects.
Instead, earmarks — pet projects that members of Congress fund but that no federal agency has requested — have become a mainstay of political life here, and one that Palin embraced from early on in her career as a mayor of Wasilla to the governor's mansion in Juneau.
Just this year, she sent to Sen. Ted. Stevens, R-Alaska, a proposal for 31 earmarks totaling $197 million — more, per person, than any other state.
As a result, Alaska this year was in such a money-flushed condition — with no state income tax or sales tax and total state revenues of $10 billion, double the previous year's — that Palin gained legislative approval for $1,200 cash payments to every Alaskan.
In addition, each Alaska resident gets an annual dividend check, about $2,000 this year, from Alaska's oil-wealth savings account, known as the Permanent Fund, now fattened to more than $35 billion.
The state also has been able to tap into a gusher of federal money as its Republican congressional delegation rose in seniority and clout.
In 1996, when Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla, a city of about 8,000 some 40 miles north of Anchorage, she did not take part in the earmark process.
But by 2000, into her second term, the city had hired a Washington, D.C., lobbyist, Steven Silver, a former aide to Stevens, then the ultimate rainmaker as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"She was hungry for earmarks just like everybody else," said Larry Persily, who worked at the Alaska state office in Washington, D.C., until earlier this year. "Everyone was feeding at the trough."
Before she left office, Wasilla, with aid of the lobbyist and the blessing of Stevens and Rep. Don Young, got $27 million in earmarks, according to the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense."
seattletimes.nwsource.com |
