Published: September 04, 2008 05:08 pm            

Invalid criticism — 09/05/08

Sarah Palin would have been foolish to turn down earmarks

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s nominee for vice president, is being criticized in some circles for being two-faced on the issue of earmarks. While she supports GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s calls for placing curbs on congressional earmarks, Palin’s critics point out that she accepted millions of dollars in federal funds, both as mayor of Wasilla and then as governor, that were a direct result of earmarks placed in spending bills by influential members of Alaska’s three-person congressional delegation.

Well, Palin is hardly alone. While she may think earmarks are fiscally irresponsible — and they are — it is likely Palin’s political career would have been a brief one had she declined a federal handout as a matter of principle. After all, as long as Congress was doling out the money, Palin no doubt thought Wasilla deserved its fair share — or even more than its fair share — as much as any other city in America.

We suspect that there are residents of this community who think the $10 million U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell secured for Ashland’s riverfront through an earmark is an example of wasteful federal spending. After all, why should the federal taxes paid by residents of distant states be used to help create an attractive riverfront in a small Kentucky town they are unlikely to ever visit?

However, we know of no elected official who criticized McConnell’s earmark to benefit Ashland. After all, without the help of Uncle Sam, how else was this community ever going to come up with the money for its riverfront project? In fact, even with the $10 million for the federal government, Ashland still is gong to be far short of the money it needs to complete the ambitious riverfront project.

When U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the 4th District, secured $1 million in federal funds for a downtown parking garage, we used this space to thank the congressman for a “slab of pork.” From the loud cries of protest we heard from everyone from elected city and county officials to leaders of the business community, one would have thought this newspaper had committed one of the seven deadly sins for having the audacity to characterize the parking garage as a “pork barrel project.”

The local response to the money Bunning secured for the parking garage was a prime example of how one person’s pork barrel project is another person’s essential project. That’s why in Alaska there are residents who continue to staunchly defend the now notorious federal earmark for the “bridge to nowhere.”

Of course, as it turned out, the $1 million proved to not be nearly enough to construct a parking garage at the corner of 14th Street and Winchester Avenue, just as the $10 million is not enough to complete the riverfront project. However, largely because of the allocation secured by Bunning, there now is a parking lot complete with the fountain at 14th and Winchester.

Our point is this: It is legitimate to question whether being mayor of a small town and governor of a small state is ample experience to be the vice president of the United States Indeed, in our book, McCain’s selection of Palin rendered mostly irrelevant the criticism Republicans had of Barack Obama’s lack of experience.

However, criticizing Palin for doing what just about any elected official in America would do in accepting federal money is not valid. We know of few mayors who would turn down a free gift from Uncle Sam.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.