Posted on 08/31/2008 8:30:47 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
With another hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, the so-called “bridge to nowhere,” championed by Alaska’s Congressional delegation on behalf of the people of Ketchikan, just won’t go away.
Three years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the plan to spend hundreds of millions to connect Ketchikan with its airport on Gravina Island became a national symbol of Congressional excess, much to the dismay of Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young.
Sen. John McCain has made it a habit to ridicule the bridge project during his presidential campaign.
McCain has promised to veto any bill sent to him by Congress with any earmarks. In July, the Associated Press reported that McCain wants to cut all earmarks and billions more to “punish lawmakers for past earmarks,” the AP said.
Stevens and Young have long argued that earmarks have been essential to the Alaska economy, funding everything from the Denali Commission to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
In her introductory speech Friday as McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin picked up on the Ketchikan bridge that was never built as a symbol of bad federal policy.
“I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress,” Palin said at her first campaign appearance. “In fact, I told Congress — 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.”
That is not how Palin described her position on the Gravina Island bridge when she ran for governor in 2006.
On Oct. 22, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News asked Palin and the other candidates, “Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?”
Her response: “Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now — while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”
Palin’s support of the earmark for the bridge was applauded by the late Lew Williams Jr., the retired Ketchikan Daily News publisher who wrote columns on the topic.
Williams wrote on Oct. 29, 2006, that Palin was the only gubernatorial candidate that year who consistently supported the Gravina Island Bridge, the Knik Arm Bridge and improvements to the Parks Highway.
Two months earlier, while campaigning in Ketchikan, Palin made a positive reference to the bridge, while also joking, as a resident of the Mat-Su Valley, about Sen. Ben Stevens’ slap at Mat-Su residents as “Valley trash.”
“OK, you’ve got Valley trash standing in the middle of nowhere,” Palin said on a stop in Ketchikan, a quote reprinted in the Juneau Empire Friday. “I think we’re going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project.”
A year later, she issued a news release as governor saying Ketchikan needed better airport access, but a $398 million bridge was not going to happen.
“Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island,” Palin said on Sept. 21, 2007.
The money was not sent back to the federal government, but spent on other projects.
That was hardly “Thanks but no thanks.”
In his statement announcing Palin as his running mate Friday, McCain said, “She put a stop to the “bridge to nowhere” that would have cost taxpayers $400 million.”
One of the immediate related questions for Alaska is whether Palin plans to change her position and accept McCain’s view that earmarks should be abolished and that any bill containing them should be vetoed.
This is significant because the state, along with dozens of local governments and nonprofit groups across Alaska, routinely asks Congress to fund everything from new buildings to docks and road work. The Alaska Railroad alone asked for about $80 million this year, while Nome wanted $13 million for wind generation, North Pole asked for nearly $7 million and the Fairbanks North Star Borough asked for about $25 million.
McCain has made his position clear.
“I will veto every bill with earmarks until the Congress stops sending bills with earmarks on them. I will keep vetoing. I will make them famous. You will know their names, ” McCain said in a speech on April 15, according to video on his Web site. He also said, “I have a clear record of not asking for a single earmark for my state.”
Alaska has a clear record of seeking earmarks.
In March, Palin’s Washington, D.C., representative, John Katz, wrote a defense of earmarks, published in the Juneau Empire in which he said the state is cutting back on its wish list.
The Palin administration requested 31 earmarks this year totaling $200 million and “we are not abandoning earmarks altogether,” Katz said, as they are a “legitimate exercise of Congress’ constitutional power to amend the budget proposed by the president.”
Full disclosure: I currently SUPPORT McCain-Palin and donated 100 dollars to them yesterday.
PING!
Let’s hope the D ticket gets at least an equal vetting by the press.
The ONLY THING THAT MATTERS is that she vetoed it.
Hey “I was against the bridge after I was for it”-there how’s that, the media was okay with something like that when Kerry said it. Kerry-yes John Kerry-he served in Vietnam for those of you who didn’t know.
This doesn’t sound good. If Palin actually made these comments before the election she might come off sounding pretty foolish now. I hope she has a good explanation.
I wonder how many billions of our dollars that Obama and Biden have spent on pork.
Troubling.
I see some obsucation of wording in there, but I’m not sure it’s all just misunderstanding.
Whatever explanation Palin gives, will never be good enough for the drive-bys.
Minneapolis – Alaska Governor Sarah Palin briefly emerged from protective custody this week to deliver a much welcomed gift to the state of Minnesota. That gift was the Gravina Island Bridge, otherwise known as the “Bridge to Nowhere”. “I am just happy that someone can finally put this thing to use”, quipped the wonderfully witty Sarah Palin, as she personally delivered the bridge before a crowd of awestruck onlookers.
This passes for journalism in Anchorage, Alaska???
On Oct. 22, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News asked Palin and the other candidates, “Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?”
Her response: “Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now — while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”
KEYWORDS: STATE FUNDING
Nowhere in her quote did she say she supported federal earmarks for the bridge.
Troubling?
lol
Hardly.
how many times has Obama flip Flopped lately on every issue. Bottom Line she vetoed it when the vote counted.
Read the question that was posed to her.
They asked if she supported state funding of the bridge!
Nothing about the earmarks!!!
Per Wikipedia:
Governor Sarah Palin also supported the project, but canceled the bridge when the Alaska delegation was unable to prevent changes to federal funding levels that more than doubled Alaska’s portion of the bill from $160M (40%) to $329M (82%) of the bridge’s cost
One of the linked articles, partially quoted in the media piece,(http://web.archive.org/web/20071214143302/http://www.gov.state.ak.us/archive.php?id=623&type=1) says:
““Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer,” said Governor Palin. “Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island,” Governor Palin added. “Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.” The Department of Transportation has approximately $36 million in federal funds that will become available for other projects with the shutdown of the Gravina Island bridge project. Governor Palin has directed Commissioner Leo von Scheben to review transportation projects statewide to prepare a list of possible uses for the funds, while the department also looks for a more affordable answer for Gravina Island access. “
I agree.
She’s not perfect and we have to stop the fawning Obama-like worship.
I like her, don’t get me wrong, but this appears to be a “finger in the wind” decision on her part - she changed her mind when it was politically convenient to do so.
Hmm. Trying to find out how this relates to federal earmarks...
I saw the lefties running around yesterday with this. The real point here is that she removed support for it. As I said elsewhere, there is a story that she even suggested that the $118 million raised already (under Murkowski, I think?) be used to assist Minnesota when their bridge collapsed but was told it wasn’t legally feasible. I have no idea if that story is true. She didn’t exactly endear herself to Alaskan Republicans by removing support.
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