Posted on 09/10/2008 6:49:39 PM PDT by Ilya Mourometz
....While running for chief executive, Palin backed the bridge, although with little evident enthusiasm. “The money that’s been appropriated for the project,” she told Ketchikan voters in September 2006, “it 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.”
Palin could have fought for the bridge as governor, as did her spendthrift GOP predecessor, Frank Murkowski (whom she jettisoned in a primary). Murkowski recommended dedicating $195 million in the state budget for the bridge. Instead, Palin gave it $0.
“Palin’s budget doesn’t include money for mega projects that she supported as a candidate, such as the controversial Gravina Island bridge in Ketchikan,” Kyle Hopkins wrote in the December 16, 2006 Anchorage Daily News. “Palin said she will hash out where the bridge fits on the state’s list of priorities with the help of the Legislature and public. ‘We have a limited pot of money, of course, and we need to make wise, sensible choices,’ she said.”
In a February 2007 report on infrastructure priorities, Palin’s transition team opposed the Bridge, plus a road in Juneau. “Statewide, these two projects are seen as a severe drain on resources that would otherwise be assigned to heavily used commercial and passenger routes,” the study concluded.
Alaska’s Senate approved $1.6 billion in capital items on May 11, 2007. True to Palin’s wishes, the spending plan provided no money for the Bridge to Nowhere.
On September 21, 2007, Palin finally stated, “‘Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer.”
Palin’s early, tepid support for the bridge, followed by her open hostility to it as governor did not please the state’s GOP political establishment.
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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Yzk1MWE2ZDg5OGE3ZGYyMTY3ZGEyZTIzMTk0MjVhZWQ=
Thank you.
I believe the issue will be extinguished tomorrow and/or Friday as there is no question but that Charlie Gibson will bring it up in the two-part interview. Her previous interviews and debates in Alaska indicate to me, at least, that she will articulately and concisely nail this once and for all.
Explain that there is a significant difference between a small town mayor or governor seeking federal assistance for infrastructure improvements and a Senator using earmarks to pay back political favors or enrich themselves personally. Like the one who secured an earmark excess of 1 million dollar for a hospital only to have the senators wife who works at the hospital triple their salary . This is the kind corruption we are coming to Washington to stop...
There will be a Sit back and wait for the disturbakc in the force.
The issue would die quickly.
mark
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