Palin’s Milllllions of Dollars!
8 07 2009Part of Palin’s reason for quitting the governorship, so she says, is financial. Why should the state be spending “million of dollars” in dealing with “frivolous ethics complaints” and frivolous lawsuits and just general…frivolity? Heck, according to the governor, the frivolity takes up 80% of the administration’s time these days. And that’s a lot!
Think for a moment what we could be doing with that money. We could be funding the State Troopers! No, we haven’t really done that before, but we could do it now. We could fund teachers! OK, we wanted to cut that stimulus money for education, but still. We could fund all sorts of things if it weren’t for those darned ethics complaints that are just sucking the state coffers dry. What would any good fiscal conservative do? Exhibit leadership by quitting, that’s what.
So for the good of Alaska, Governor Palin decided to extend her arms to the side, look up to the heavens, lean forward and fall on the sword. There she lies, skewered like a big mavericky h’ors d’oeuvre. For Alaska. It is “self sacrifice” - the kind of which most political martyrs only dare to dream.
There’s only one problem with that story. The key reason Palin gave for quitting may be… buckle your seatbelts… FALSE.
David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints.
In response to our questions, the Governor’s office provided us with a detailed breakdown of the millions Palin has claimed has gone to defending against ethics complaints. It does list roughly $1.9 million in expenditures.
But Murrow, the spokesperson, acknowledged to our reporter, Amanda Erickson, that this total was arrived at by adding up attorney hours spent on fending off complaints — based on the fixed salaries of lawyers in the governor’s office and the Department of Law. The money would have gone to the lawyers no matter what they were doing. The complaints are “just distracting them from other duties,” Murrow said.
In other words, while these lawyers might have been free to do other legal work for the state, the ethics complaints have apparently not had the real world impact Palin has claimed, and didn’t drain money away from cops, teachers, roads and other things.
And, of course, the Personnel Board’s members are paid per diem. And all the records requests and email requests all come with exorbitant price tags, paid for by those who request to see them. That $2 million is looking smaller all the time.
For those who want some additional number crunchery, do go visit Mel Green’s posts on the topic. The first one (HERE) talks about the breakdown of the dollars spent on ethics complaints, but was written before Palin’s backtracking explanation of where the “$2 million” number came from. I’ve talked about the ethics complaint breakdown too, but I didn’t have a snazzy pie chart like this:
I’m a sucker for a pie chart, and what this one says is that between the Troopergate probe that she herself initiated, the other Troopergate probe that found her guilty of ethics violations, the investigation that resulted in reimbursing the state for her children’s travel expenses, and the one that suggested ethics training for a top member of the administration… the biggest chunk of that pie is the governor’s doing and belongs right on the governor’s plate.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:56 PM
In an article I read, according to Levi Johnston, Sarah Palin, quit for personal financial reasons. He said he overheard her saying more than once, how nice it would be to take the lucrative offerings of either a reality show or book deal.
He says he stayed with the Palin family from December to the second week of January. So it would seem to me, Palin quit so she could have financial gain and not for the reasons she stated. In other words, she loves the money and not Alaska.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:57 PM
Perhaps the McCain campaign should be billed for the information requests. They foisted a virtual unknown on the lower 48. Of course people (ie voters) wanted to know more about the Twidiot of AK.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:21 PM
Hi Mona (post 267) not sure if you are still online, but I’ll try to answer:
SarahPac is supposed to be for travel/promotion not related to being Gov., also can donate to other candidates. The spokesperson Meg Stapleton works for the PAC, not the Gov. So she’s not supposed to be involved w/Govt. stuff.
The AFT (Alaska Fund Trust) which is a horrible rip off name, is supposed to be for the former Gov. to pay her “legal” fees, but actually can be used for anything, for her, her family, her friends, etc.
BOTH OF THESE FUNDS are funded by the people who support her, regular folks with $ they want to donate. Not a penny out of the Palin’s pocket.
Hope you see this & it helps!!!
July 9th, 2009 at 9:17 PM
I’m waiting to see the Governor’s office estimates for the amount of state money spent on staffers answering public records requests, responding to media inquiries, retrieving e-mail, etc. during Sarah’s VP campaign.
Not to mention the extra work her staff and other state officers had to put in to make up for her 2+ month absence from the state.
Tick tock.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:23 PM
Village Reader: I hear you.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:47 PM
quote AKM, “the biggest chunk of that pie is the governor’s doing and belongs right on the governor’s plate.” According to KO’s interview posted on Immoral Minority with Rachel Carlson, she’s not paying that either. She said she talked with John Coale who said the repayment of travel monies for the kids, SP/TP’s troopergate expense, etc. were paid by the defense fund. SP and TP have so far incurred no out of pocket expenses.
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/
I would have more respect for SP, is she just came out and said she wanted to take the millions for the book deal and to do that she decided to resign. I thinks that’s the truth instead of all these numerous bogus reasons she keeps spouting.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:46 AM
Pearl89:
You repeated an error that Gryphen posted, alleging that the travel money was repaid by the Alaska Fund Trust. Gryphen has since corrected that error – see the comments.
If you listen to Gretchen Carlson on Countdown, she says several important things:
1. She says John Coale setup the Alaska Fund Trust. I believe this is incorrect, as John Coale actually setup SarahPac.
2. She says ‘most’ of the legal expenses were paid by the Trust, not ‘all’.
3. She did NOT claim that the Trust had paid the travel money back to the state, nor that the Trust had paid the tax owed to the IRS for the per diem income.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:55 AM
If you read the actual pdf, it’s a baked Alaskan (pardon the pun):
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/politicsblog/index.php?blogid=14916
What’s most amazing is despite the pile of evidence mounting against real problematic expenditures is a document with no merit, and in fact, more questions…