Americas Welfare Queen

[Nomad]

From: Cafe, Election Central

Welcome to Alaska, America's welfare queen



By markg8 - September 3, 2008, 4:22PM

As I said before Palin is governor of a state that has less people than DuPage County IL where I live.

Yet despite Alaska's massive tax revenues from oil companies and it's tiny population it has been getting way more federal pork than any state in the nation for decades. On top of that Alaska is the only state that does not collect state sales tax or levy an individual income tax. To finance state operations, Alaska gets 89% of it's operating budget from petroleum revenues.

The following organization is the offshoot of President Reagan's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control started in 1984, also known as the Grace Commission. Definitely not a Dem friendly group.

Citizens Against Government Waste

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homePage

Rank State Pork Population Pork/Capita

2000 1 Alaska $394,514,000 619,500 636.83

2001 1 Alaska $480,297,000 626,932 766.11

2002 1 Alaska $451,334,278 634,892 710.88

2003 1 Alaska $393,346,750 643,786 610.99

2004 1 Alaska $524,329,000 648,818 808.13

2005 1 Alaska $645,502,000 655,435 984.85

2006 1 Alaska $325,106,000 663,661 489.87

2007 not listed

2008 1 Alaska $379,699,715 683,478 555.54

In her introductory speech Friday as McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin picked up on the Ketchikan bridge that was never built as a symbol of bad federal policy.

“I

championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress,”

Palin said at her first campaign appearance. “In fact, I told Congress

— I told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ on that bridge to nowhere.

If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves.”

On Oct. 22, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News asked Palin and the other candidates, “Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?”

Her

response: “Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects

built sooner rather than later. The window is now — while our

congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”

A

year later, she issued a news release as governor saying Ketchikan

needed better airport access, but a $398 million bridge was not going

to happen.

“Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we

are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project and

it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money

on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island,” Palin said on Sept. 21, 2007.

The money was not sent back to the federal government, but spent on other projects.

That was hardly “Thanks but no thanks.”