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#1
09-08-2008, 11:21 PM
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Why is Palin LYING about the bridge to nowhere?
Fact Check: Palin and the Bridge to Nowhere
9 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — A new ad from John McCain's presidential campaign contends his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere." In fact, Palin was for the infamous bridge before she was against it THE SPIN: Called "Original Mavericks," the ad asserts the Republican senator has fought pork-barrel spending, the drug industry and fellow Republicans, reforming Washington in the process, and credits Palin with similarly changing Alaska by taking on the oil industry, challenging her own party and ditching the bridge project that became a national symbol of wasteful spending. Obama spokesman Bill Burton came back with fighting words. "Despite being discredited over and over again by numerous news organizations, the McCain campaign continues to repeat the lie that Sarah Palin stopped the Bridge to Nowhere," he said. Burton said McCain would merely carry on supporting President Bush's economic, health, education, energy and foreign policies, and that means "anything but change." THE FACTS: Palin did abandon plans to build the nearly $400 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. But she made her decision after the project had become an embarrassment to the state, after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska, and after she had appeared to support the bridge during her campaign for governor. McCain and Palin together have told a broader story about the bridge that is misleading. She is portrayed as a crusader for the thrifty use of tax dollars who turned down an offer from Washington to build an expensive bridge of little value to the state. "I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere," she said in her convention speech last week. That's not what she told Alaskans when she announced a year ago that she was ordering state transportation officials to ditch the project. Her explanation then was that it would be fruitless to try to persuade Congress to come up with the money. "It's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island," Palin said then. Palin indicated during her 2006 campaign for governor that she supported the bridge, but was wishy-washy about it. She told local officials that money appropriated for the bridge "should remain available for a link, an access process as we continue to evaluate the scope and just how best to just get this done." She vowed to defend Southeast Alaska "when proposals are on the table like the bridge and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative" — something that McCain was busy doing at the time, as a fierce critic of the bridge. Even so, she called the bridge design "grandiose" during her campaign and said something more modest might be appropriate. Palin's reputation for standing up to entrenched interests in Alaska is genuine. Her self-description as a leader who "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress" is harder to square with the facts. The governor has cut back on pork-barrel project requests, but in her two years in office, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. And as mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million 
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#2
09-08-2008, 11:25 PM
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did McCain actually oppose Palin earmarks? LOL
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,5932587.story
Three times in recent years, the Arizona senator's lists of 'objectionable' pork spending have included earmarks requested by his new running mate. By Tom Hamburger, Richard Simon and Janet Hook | Los Angeles Times Staff Writers September 3, 2008 WASILLA, ALASKA - For much of his long career in Washington, John McCain has been throwing darts at the special spending system known as earmarking, through which powerful members of Congress can deliver federal cash for pet projects back home with little or no public scrutiny. He's even gone so far as to publish "pork lists" detailing these financial favors. Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin. Now, McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, has chosen Palin as his running mate, touting her as a reformer just like him. McCain has made opposition to pork-barrel spending a central theme of his 2008 campaign. "Earmarking deprives federal agencies of scarce resources, at the whim of individual members of Congress," McCain has said. records show that Palin -- first as mayor of Wasilla and recently as governor of Alaska -- was far from shy about pursuing tens of millions in earmarks for her town, her region and her state. This year, Palin, who has been governor for nearly 22 months, defended earmarking as a vital part of the legislative system. "The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship," she wrote in a newspaper column. In 2001, McCain's list of spending that had been approved without the normal budget scrutiny included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla. The Arizona senator targeted $1 million in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town -- one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion. McCain also criticized $450,000 set aside for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin's tenure as mayor and cleared Congress soon after she left office in 2002. The funding was provided to help direct locally grown produce to schools, prisons and other government institutions, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. Wasilla received $11.9 million in earmarks from 2000 to 2003. The results of this spending are very apparent today. (The town also benefited from $15 million in federal funds to promote regional rail transportation.) The community transit center is a landmark: a one-story, tile-fronted building with a drive-through garage. Its fleet of 10 buses provides service throughout the region. Mat-Su Community Transit Agency officials say the building was made possible with a combination of federal money and matching gifts from a private foundation. Taylor Griffin, a McCain campaign spokesman, said that when Palin became mayor in 1996, "she faced a system that was broken. Small towns like Wasilla in Alaska depended on earmarks to take care of basic needs. . . . That was something that Gov. Palin was alarmed about and was one of the formative experiences that led her toward the reform-oriented stance that she has taken as her career has progressed." Palin, he said, was "disgusted" that small towns like hers were dependent on earmarks. Public records paint a different picture: Wasilla had received few if any earmarks before Palin became mayor. She actively sought federal funds -- a campaign that began to pay off only after she hired a lobbyist with close ties to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who long controlled federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He made funneling money to Alaska his hallmark. Steven Silver was a former chief of staff for Stevens. After he was hired, Wasilla obtained funding for several projects in 2002, including an additional $600,000 in transportation funding. That year, a local water and sewer project received $1.5 million, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, which combs federal spending measures to identify projects inserted by congressional members. When Palin spoke after McCain introduced her as his running mate at a rally in Ohio last week, she made fun of earmarking. She said she had rejected $223 million in federal funds for a bridge linking Ketchikan to an island with an airport and 50 residents, referring to it by its derogatory label: the "bridge to nowhere." In the nationally televised speech, she stood by McCain and said, "I've championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, 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." However, as a candidate for governor in 2006, Palin had backed funding for the bridge. After her election, she killed the much-ridiculed project when it became clear the state had other priorities. She said she would use the federal funds to fill those needs. This year she submitted to Congress a list of Alaska projects worth $197.8 million, including $2 million to research crab productivity in the Bering Sea and $7.4 million to improve runway lighting at eight Alaska airports. A spokesman said she cut the original list of 54 projects to 31. "So while Sen. McCain was going after cutting earmarks in Washington," said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, "Gov. Palin was going after getting earmarks."
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#3
09-09-2008, 01:27 AM
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Wow!....the LA slimes and the Chicago Trib....what bastions of truth and Liberty!
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#4
09-09-2008, 10:53 AM
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This criticism I don't quite understand - but I do understand the political value of the criticism. Isn't it her responsibility to try and get these earmarks if they are available. I mean if these earmarks were available to the City of San Diego and the Mayor didn't do his utmost to try and get the funds for the City I would be pissed...and if these earmarks are available to the State of California and Arnold did not try and put the state in line to get this pork - I'd say he isn't doing his job . Now if it is the responsibility of the Congress to control all this pork barrel and they don't ...shouldn't the blame actually go on Congress for approving this crap? ...and I don't know where Obama stands on the issue - but the idea that come Jan 2009 the public would know what the pork is and who is voting to approve it - appeals to me as a tax payer.
__________________
We've Gone Delirious
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#5
09-09-2008, 12:45 PM
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See my point? In just two weeks, this woman has told more lies than both candidates combined.
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#6
09-09-2008, 12:51 PM
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A politcian that DECEIVES AND LIES!?!?! I don't believe it 
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#7
09-09-2008, 01:05 PM
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#8
09-09-2008, 01:20 PM
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It would be a cop out only If I was 100% certain to be voting for McCain/Palin. I am still very undecided at this point. Although I am a registered Republican, I am a very moderate one. In my heart of hearts, I believe both parties (Rep and Dem in general, not the current candidates) bring positive things to the table. My biggest gripe and complaints are with politicians as a whole. It just seems increasingly with every passing election (not only nationwide, but on a state and local level as well) we as American citizens are forced over and over to vote for the "lesser of two evils" candidate. And frankly, that just sucks. I realize that not every feels the same way I do, but I assure you that I am not alone.
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#9
09-09-2008, 01:25 PM
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I think my point is Congress did the earmarking - that she took the $$$$ is OK by me...but I think the Bridge has a few details that makes it a grey issue. I am not sure its lies & deceit - it's just politics STOP THE PORK AT THE SOURCE!
__________________
We've Gone Delirious
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#11
09-09-2008, 02:45 PM
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#12
09-09-2008, 02:54 PM
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__________________
We've Gone Delirious
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