improving recreational halibut fishing...studying mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals

Palin's earmarks: Not just for the halibut
By: Ben Smith
September 10, 2008 05:52 PM EST

Senator John McCain recently told reporters that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has “learned that earmarks are bad.”

But not that bad, apparently. According to a “summary of requests for federal appropriations” posted to her budget office’s website earlier this year, Palin requested millions of federal dollars for everything from improving recreational halibut fishing to studying the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals.

It’s a position at odds with her recasting as an anti-earmarking champion, and with the tone of the biting scorn she’s employed toward the budgetary practice this week.

“In just three years our opponent has requested nearly one billion dollars in earmarks. That’s nearly a million dollars for every working day,” Palin told a crowd in Lebanon, Ohio, Tuesday. “So as we reform the abusive earmarks in our state our opponent was requesting nearly a billion dollars in earmarks as a senatorial privilege as I was vetoing half a billion as an executive responsibility.”

Palin’s earmark requests aren’t unusual, of course. Every self-respecting mayor and governor in America seeks federal dollars for local projects. And Palin has, at times, sounded a cautionary note on earmarks despite the fact that Alaska receives more earmarked federal money per capita than any other state and is unusually reliant on those funds because of its geographic isolation, massive size and extreme climate.

Indeed, in her January state of the state address, Palin said the state “must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks.”

But the document summarizing Palin’s earmark requests was created the next month, and it suggested a still-healthy appetite for earmarks. Soon afterward, Palin wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper outlining her not-so-reticent posture on earmarks.

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http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4E2E5BFD-18FE-70B2-A815903CFF648F68

:woohoo: