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You may have seen the letter about Sarah Palin written by fellow Wassiliak Anne Kilkenny that's making the rounds. You really need to read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt: Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign. Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents. The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing. While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. Snopes.com (READ THIS WHOLE THING)
When I first heard the snippets of information about Palin that the Republicans were jamming down the mainstream media's throats, I thought maybe her greatest attraction for the "real" republicans out there would be her credentials as a so-called "fiscal conservative." Sure there's the "gun nut" appeal and the "hot for teacher" appeal, but I thought those two pools of voters were fairly shallow. It's the fiscal conservatives that concerned me. Fiscal conservatives don't like McSame, but they might still vote for him because of Palin. I'm not concerned about them anymore. The "real" conservatives will see how she irresponsibly ran up Wasilla's debt, remodelled her own office repeatedly and run from McSame/Palindrome like cockroaches scattering when the lights are turned on.
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