Sarah Palin, Pork Queen

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Sarah Palin recently told a crowd of McCain followers to much applause. John McCain has made fighting corruption, and specifically the practice of awarding earmarks, a central issue in his campaign. John McCain's campaign released an ad earlier this year specifically citing Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere," calling it "outrageous." The 233 million dollar project was to connect the city of Ketchikan with Gravina Island, which in the 2000 census, had a population of 50 people. McCain has touted Palin as a reformer, someone who also has fought corruption and government waste.

What the McCain campaign doesn't want mentioned is that Palin ran for Governor of Alaska in 2006 voicing her support of the Bridge to Nowhere. When the Bridge to Nowhere sparked nationwide outrage she changed her position, stating that the bridge wasn't needed, but Alaska didn't return the 233 million dollars to the federal government. Alaska simply used the money for other transportation projects. In a particularly absurd twist, a road on Gravina Island that was to connect to the Ketchikan- Gravina Island bridge is still being built. It's a road that will now lead to an empty beach. Why is it still being built? Because if it wasn't, the money for that part of the project would had to have been returned.

In fact, Palin's political career is a tale of vote-winning pork projects that paved her way from the tiny berg of Wasila, right to the governor's mansion. In 2000, as the mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired the firm Hoffman Silver Gilman & Blasco to bring home the bacon to Wasilla, resulting in $26.9 million worth of earmarks by 2004 for the town of 9,700 people. In fact, according to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin herself appeared in front of congress in 2000 requesting earmarks.

To understand the amount of federal earmark money slathered on Wasilla, Alaska during Palin's term compare it with Boise, Idaho. In the fiscal year 2008, Boise, with a population of 190,000 received 6.9 million in earmarks. Wasilla, Alaska, in 2002 received 6.1.

Nor has Palin stopped pursuing earmarks for Alaska. Thus far she's applied for $197 million of earmarks for the 2009 fiscal year through Sen. Ted Stevens. And according to Citizens Against Government Waste, Alaska received $379,669,715 in earmarks during fiscal year 2008, almost $100 million more than any other state. Alaska has the fifth smallest population of any state in the US.

Possibly the most ironic part of this story is that with the rise in oil prices of late Alaska has been rolling in money. Palin recently gained approval for an extra 1,200 dollar per person payout to Alaskans from the state, in addition to their annual dividend checks. The dividend checks will be $2,000 this year, from Alaska's oil-wealth savings account, known as the Permanent Fund, which contains more than $35 billion.

Democrats in Alaska argued against these checks, pointing out that the money could be used to build needed infrastructure projects. Palin got the payout approved anyway, apparently preferring taxpayers in the lower 48 states to fund Alaska's infrastructure through earmarks, while Alaskans spend the largess from their oil wealth. "As governor, I've stood up to the old politics-as-usual, to the special interests, to the lobbyists, the big oil companies, and the good-ol'-boy network," Palin said Friday. Somehow this claim rings a bit hollow when voiced by Alaska's queen of pork.