Palin makes taxpayers foot the bill...

[QueenAdrock]

I find this pretty concerning for someone who is going to "shake up" Washington and be different, or whatever else she's claiming. She says against reckless spending and wants lower taxes, and yet this happens? Come on.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090803088.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008090900325&s_pos=

[Dorothy Wood]

it looks like she spent way less than the previous governor, so she could justify it to herself. I can't believe that anyone'd take a per diem when they're getting such a high salary! especially for just living in your own house. and I can't imagine that the cost of living in alaska is that high.

HATE HER.

[yeahwho]

I don't know, I mean that isn't really too damning. The former governor had a leer jet. The NYC Hotel for $700 a night, that's about right for someone who is a governor. I stayed in NYC in July and my tiny room was $350 a night, it was nice but not really a place to entertain or do official state business from. It's silly that the limit is $300 for a hotel room in any city, let alone NYC. Alaska is huge, flying is commonplace for over half the population, for the governor it's a must, that also entails food and lodging. Plus she has a pretty, pretty active fertile family.

She is entitled to some sort of benefit as governor and I'm sure if we look across the country at governors expense accounts many of them would easily double hers. The problem is that information is not so readily available to the average yeahwho, so I couldn't find it.

[kaiser soze]

Straight Spongin' off the people, the real republican way.

I don't mind someone needing per diem for legitimate reasons...but charging per diem while at home....

That's welfare!

Per Diem Palin!!!

[travesty]

grasping...plain and simple. Get back the real issues.

[QueenAdrock]

This is a real issue. She said that she doesn't want the taxpayer paying for some of the things in the governor's mansion (to the cheers of the RNC) and yet makes the taxpayers pay for this shit?

If she's campaigning and saying that she's different from those "washington insiders" how come she's acting just like one of them? You think with her positions she stands for, she'd say "No, this is wasteful spending." But she didn't. Why not?

[QueenAdrock]

Meanwhile, Todd Palin spent $725 to fly to Edmonton, Alberta, for "information gathering and planning meeting with Northern Alberta Institute of Technology," according to an expense report.

That's where I work! But wtf, $725? That's first class right there. I travel home to DC for $500. I guess if you're making the state foot the bill, you don't have to travel coach, though.

[travesty]

"Gov. Palin has spent far less on her personal travel than her predecessor: $93,000 on airfare in 2007, compared with $463,000 spent the year before by her predecessor, Frank Murkowski. He traveled often in an executive jet that Palin called an extravagance during her campaign. She sold it after she was sworn into office."

.."Leighow noted that under state policy, all of the governor's children are entitled to per diem expenses, even her infant son. "The first family declined the per diem [for] the children," Leighow said. "The amount that they had declined was $4,461, as of August 5."

Look, I'm no Palin fan by any stretch but you have to admit she does seem to have done a far better job of cutting expenses as Governor than anyone else in her current position. She may have taken a LEGAL per diem that could be seen as contrary to her policy but she also could have LEGALLY taken much, much more, and didn't.

I don't think it will be an issue after tomorrow. It's just another distraction from how truly whacked out she is on the real issues.

[QueenAdrock]

Yeah, I don't care about most of the stuff she charges to the state, if it's needed for business or whatever. But when I hear shit about how she charged them to sit at home for 312 days? Gimme a break. That's wasteful.

[travesty]

definitely doesn't help her case