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21.3.08

Governor Palin: "Take this cash and shove it!"

March 21, 2009

Take this cash and shove it! Palin has cojones!!

"Oh woe, oh wail, oh moan, oh groan."
"How could she do something like this to our children!?!"


"All she is concerned with is her national reputation; she doesn't care for the people of her state."

My word people! Calm yourselves. Seldom have I seen so many people (who truly ought to know better) in such a tizzy over the actions of a Governor of our Great State. You'd think she was out burning down schools. ["Well she might as well be; it amounts to the same thing!"] Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I think you are nuts, but I hear you. You are getting your point across; it is not necessary to shout so.

So what is this dastardly thing that our gutsy Governor is doing "this time"? She is saying "thanks but no thanks" to what amounts to ~31% of the federal stimulus money that is available to Alaska.

What?!? Turning down free money? Is she nuts?

Apparently some people with very big mouths and very loud voices think so. Oddly [:-)] this are the same people who criticize everything else that she does -- including running for Vice President and thereby "neglecting" the State. And of course these people would have reacted exactly the same if had been solid Democrat and previous Governor Tony Knowles that got tapped for the opportunity to run for V.P. as a Democratic candidate when he was Governor. No ... there is no philosophical consistency to their arguments. They'd have been out in the streets cheering Tony on and babbling and bubbling about how great it was for Alaska to have that sort of national exposure.

It is always the same mouths. I believe it was Robert Heinlein who said that if you just don't have the time to study up on all the issues and make a truly informed choice at the ballot box, to find a reliable bozo and just vote the opposite from how he or she votes. [Pelosi comes to mind on the national political field. She is as total a bozo as have ever been spawned and I can't imagine ... I take it back. There probably are areas where we would agree. I am neither a Republican nor a conservative. But Pelosi is an unadulterated idiot so you'd still be on the right side of most issues so long as you take a position opposite whatever hers might be on any given subject.

We have such people here on the statewide political scene as well. I don't need to name names. Just pick up any newspaper and see who is quoted with the loudest moan and wail about how Sarah is destroying education in Alaska ... or whatever gripe they have with her turning down the "free money". And then always listen to that person and vote the other way on any issue.

Because this is that type of litmus test. Those who are aghast that she would turn the money down are the idiots ... bozos ... that will be wrong on virtually every issue. At least on every economic issue.

See, here's the thing. I've been grumbling about this to anyone who would put up with me [:-)] for as long as I can remember; this automatic accepting of all money offered (and often begging for more), regardless of the long term consequences and regardless of all the strings that come attached to the money. I have been waiting for someone in the Governor's chair to have the guts to "just say no" all of my adult life. But until Sarah Palin came along, we didn't have any Governors with guts. But this lady has got them.

Despite my earlier reservations ... defending her from vicious false hatchet jobs but not truly backing her because we disagreed on so many things ... I think this may have made me a convert. Oh, I'll still disagree with her when she's wrong [:-)]. But she proved to have big-league cojones when she broke up the cozy little Big Oil/oiled legislators club ... something every previous recent Governor had either been in on or had winked at or to which they intentionally closed their eyes. But she charged in without any hesitation and with no regard whose head fell. If they were corrupt, she wanted them rooted out. And she did it! She dragged in the F.B.I. and helped them get their investigation going and helped them in other, quieter ways, as well.

And, along with some rich oil barons and lesser known conspirators, the probe she started has now succeeded in bagging its 11th trophy. Beverly Masek just pled guilty to taking bribes from Big Oil while in office and specifically in exchange for killing a bill that she herself had introduced! She is the 11th conviction to date. And, so far, all of them were Republicans. And they are all staring at bars ... or having nightmares about soon staring at bars ... purely because Sarah Palin had the guts to not play slimeball. There was so much money and power that she took down, I'm honestly amazed that she's even alive.

The fact that it was her own party that took the brunt of that assault has kept Democrats remarkably positive about her and Republicans have a difficult time criticizing her for breaking up what was completely unambiguous selling of votes.

This time it is different. Oh, she still gets huge points for cojones; only this time it is mostly Democrats who are opposed to her refusal to take "free money" (although not a lot of Republicans have had the guts to jump on the bandwagon with her). Doesn't matter. She is doing what it right. What all thinking people know is right [at least regarding the forest ... she may have a few trees in the wrong group]. But conceptually we all know that

1) the money isn't "free". It comes from the pockets of the taxpayers in this country. The government as no money except that which it takes from us or that which it prints which causes inflation thus devaluing what money we do have and is the same, only more insidious, as taxation.

2) that we shouldn't take money that has a lot of strings attached which effectively give the feds a lot more control over decisions that should be made by the states [you want to talk about buying votes ... that's exactly what the feds do with the money they dangle at us.] They say "You want this, you can have it ... only you have to run the schools the way WE want you to, not the way you want to." Every previous Administration in the State has said, "Oh, ok, cool" and we get idiotic bureaucrats sitting at a desk in Washington D.C. making up rules for how Alaska's Bush schools should be operated ... instead of the people who know anything about the Bush, the existing school systems, the people who attend them and what they really need to be effective. But every previous Governor has stepped right up to the trough. It is embarrassing besides being stupid. Governor Palin even had the unmitigated audacity to flatly say [what most of us know but are too mealy-mouthed to say]: "To me it's just a bribe". Awesome, Governor. Absolutely awesome.

3) that we shouldn't take money that is going to get us into programs or bridges or anything else that we are going to have to fund once the feds leave after supplying the "seed money". For every building that we build with federal dollars, we end up having to maintain it (and keep it warm and lighted and cleaned); for every government program that we start that people begin to depend on ... we have to pay to keep them running when the federal money goes away. It is like a drug. In fact many people have declared that it is the most addictive of all drugs. But when the feds dangle the cocaine baggy in front of your nose and you already have developed a "taste" for the stuff ... you take it. And when it is gone ... we don't just quit the habit. Instead we reach into our own pocket to buy more ... to keep the program going.

WE ALL KNOW ALL THIS! But so few politicians have ever had the guts to say "no thanks". We will be paying for the addictions developed by previous administrations for a very long time. Three hurrahs for Sarah for not adding more. [Can you imagine Nancy Pelosi turning it down?!? :-D] It's ok. You can laugh. It really was a joke if it wasn't such an expensive one. All Alaskans reading this: Thank Whoever It Is That You Thank that we have Sarah as Governor instead of Nancy.

Great job again Governor Palin. I'm very rarely impressed by a politician. But this time, I am truly impressed.

On behalf of all rational people everywhere ... thank you Governor.