Governor Palin’s accomplishments
Scottie Kania from Wasilla, Alaska writes:
Other than her personal life that the whole world has become privy to, what is it you and your blog participants don’t like about Sarah Palin’s accomplishments during her short tenure as governor of Alaska?
1. Using her line item veto authority, cut $287 million of waste and balanced the budget.
2. Scrapped Frank Murkowski’s tax system on the oil companies that would have basically seen AK paying them to extract and sell our resources instead of the state sharing in the profits.
3. Brought a natural gas pipeline project to the contract and development phase—something that’s been tried and failed by previous governors for 30 years without success. In any event, it appears the first pipe may be laid next year. Read about it here.
4. As part of her reform efforts, helped to remove legislators who were on the take from the oil companies to vote for the Murkowski plan. I believe there will be more to come, by the way. Thus far, all have been Republicans, so it should come as no surprise that establishment Republicans don’t like her either.
5. Redirected the wasteful Gravina Island bridge project (Bridge to Nowhere) funds to needed road projects throughout the state. Sarah had nothing to do with that earmark secured by Ted Stevens during the Murkowski administration. Incidentally, once earmark funding is received, the federal government will not take it back.
6. Though it’s true the oil revenues have slowed, we are still running a surplus of about $5 bn. So, contrary to what the uninformed talking heads on cable TV contend, Alaska does not share in the economic meltdown most states are experiencing. Our banks are solvent, housing values have remained stable and unemployment is just about the same as it has always been, hovering around 8.1%, not adjusted for the seasonal workers, of which we have many.
The first entry in this Alaskan blog might give you some insights into just how intense the ethics complaints situation had become up here. Mind you, this is only one of them, there are many others just like this insane woman.
LA replies:
Thanks for writing.
I like many things about Palin, always have. But I also have the criticisms of her which I have stated.
While I don’t know enough about the ethics complaints, my sense is that they have been part of a hate campaign by enemies seeking to harm her.
That, combined with the vicious smearing of her by her own allies, the McCain staffers, and the endless hate from the left and the media, had to have affected her.
- end of initial entry -
Terry Morris writes:
“Scrapped Frank Murkowski’s tax system on the oil companies that would have basically seen AK paying them to extract and sell our resources instead of the state sharing in the profits.”
I’d like to see some actual data on this claim, both for and against.
When I lived in Alaska back in the early ’90s the revenue sharing from oil profits amounted to, as memory serves, about $4000. per citizen per year on average. It fluctuated from year to year of course, but that was the average as I recall. I’d be interested in knowing what that amounts to now.
I’m not quite seeing how this “accomplishment” establishes Governor Palin’s conservatism. If the oil companies are taking virtually all of the risks, and the citizens of Alaska (of which there is a pretty large native contingency that doesn’t produce anything) are taking no risks yet receiving these sizable revenue sharing checks, isn’t this raising the price per barrel of oil extracted from Alaskan soil significantly, which the consumers in the lower forty-eight pay for at the pump, not the oil companies? If they can do this and still compete, I don’t particularly begrudge them for it (except for the dependency it creates and fosters), but I’m still not seeing what exactly is “conservative” about this.
Maybe I’m just too focused on the fostering of dependency. I don’t know.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 15, 2009 01:12 PM | Send