The alaskan legislature is only in session for 3-4 months. It'd be hard to move a family of 5 kids for a 90-120 day period each year.

No it's not.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/07/local/me-arnold7

The alaskan legislature is only in session for 3-4 months. It'd be hard to move a family of 5 kids for a 90-120 day period each year.

http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/09_omb/budget/Gov/comp9.pdf

Fixed!

Under her administration, the tax -- as re-named and re-negotiated in transparent, public discussions that gathered a broad bipartisan consensus -- went from a base rate of 22.5% to 25%;

Ah so she is a tax raiser ... even better, then she took the proceeds a redistributed it to Alaskans, no wonder she is so populer.

as for my shameful comparison of Palin to communists I'm sorry, you see what I was doing is actually spoofing right wingers when they claim that Obama is a socialist, there is no proposal and frankly no proposal by anyone in the mainstream of the Democratic party that has ever proposed anything marginally Socialists, but many on the right love to trot out that hobby horse to scare the mouth breathers that buy into that crap (well there is the takeover of Freddie and Fannie but that was bi-partisan).

no Palin is not a communist, but then again she is not exactly a pork busting bulldog either and Obama is not a socialist.

I don't know why they say the governor officially lives in Juneau, but they do.

Where the governor "officially lives" is irrelevant. What matters for the per diem rules is where the governor spends most of his/her working time.

In Palin's case, that's Anchorage.

I don't know why they say the governor officially lives in Juneau, but they do.

Where the governor "officially lives" is irrelevant. What matters per the per diem rules is where the governor spends most of his/her working time.

In Palin's case, that's Anchorage.

So really the only thing you can say is she claimed less than her predesessors which doesn't really hurt her at all.

On the per diems, I don't get it. Why wouldn't you claim a per diem you job rules say you're entitled to? She's clearly traveling, so ONE of the residences (juneau or wasilla) is going to be considered 'away' half the time. She has to eat.

I suppose they could have done it the other way around and said her home is Wasilla and then she'd be collecting a per diem in the governor's mansion which probably would look just as silly.

In any case, running the Juneau mansion has got to cost more in expenses than $1800/mo (or $900 since she only claimed half the days) in per diems even just counting the personal chef she got rid of. or flying back and forth to juneau in the jet for $450k/yr, or $1200+/day.

cool by me whatever she does with the $60/day, taxpayers are way ahead. buy candy bars for the kid, whatever. the whole point of a per diem instead of itemized expenses is that it shifts the responsibility to the employee. the employee can optimize the money how they want and the company keeps the expenses below a ceiling, saves money and has no paperwork.

from my point of view, as long as she isn't passing out at meetings, if she wants to skip 3 meals a day and pocket the cash, that's what it's there for. to avoid the government from ever having to argue about $200 dinners and whether it was fair to take a one block taxi ride for lunch. she gets some travel expenses covered and she's responsible their money. $60/day total for half a year for a governor of a state's incidentals doesn't seem like much to me.

bush probably blows through that in a good weekend, but that's another story...

There is no windfall profits tax on oil companies in Alaska. There is a severance tax, and it was in place, at very nearly the same rates, before Gov. Palin took office, although the previous version was negotiated in a secret deal behind closed doors by the ethically challenged Murkowski administration that Gov. Palin ran out of town. Under her administration, the tax -- as re-named and re-negotiated in transparent, public discussions that gathered a broad bipartisan consensus -- went from a base rate of 22.5% to 25%; it became slightly more progressive on the portion of revenues running from $30/bbl to $92.50/bbl (going from 0.25% to 0.40%); and actually cut taxes on the portion of revenues in excess of $92.50/bbl (from 0.25% to 0.1%).

Neither I nor Gov. Palin support the kind of windfall profits tax that Barack Obama would impose on shareholders of energy companies to redistribute income from them to more favored classes. Although she's been tough in negotiations with them -- since they're economic adversaries of the people of Alaska -- she's frankly recognized that in trying to maximize their own profits, the energy companies' CEOs are simply serving the interests of their constituents. She's also set the big oil companies in competition with one another, which is spurring them to better performance, increased capital investment, and more risk-taking (see below, re pipeline).

When -- as in Alaska -- the state government is running a surplus, has already contributed to its long-term contingency fund against the day its oil & gas resources are depleted, and is face with a decision whether to spend the people's money (acquired by the sale of the people's natural resources) or rebate it to them per capita, I'm in favor of letting people have their money.

As for subsidies for Alaska: Vast portions of Alaska are under federal control in one way or another, and the history of subsidies there long predates the Palin administration. Palin has split with the pork barrel politicians of her own party, at considerable political risk to herself.

She wants Alaska to contribute more to the United States, and toward that end she has pushed through negotiations leading to legislation leading to competitive bidding leading to a contract to start laying a cross-state natural gas pipeline. The pipeline will not only benefit Alaska's own citizens (who have among the worst access to affordable energy of anyone in America) but will also bring Alaskan natural gas to the Lower 48. No other state governor has struck remotely as impressive and substantive a blow toward solving our national energy crisis. Gov. Palin has actually accomplished more on energy in 21 months as governor than her predecessor did in two terms, or than Congress has done in the last 20 years.

Socialist? Communist? Sir, you disrespect a generation of cold warriors and all those who died at the hands of the real communists by making such an ill-informed comparison.

Finally: Palin supporters don't think she's The Messiah. Pogo sticks notwithstanding, I'd suggest you consider capitalizing the "G" in "God" but not the "S" in "she" when you're referring to the deity and Gov. Palin.

Residents don't pay income tax and they get a rebate. The price of gasoline to the other 48 states (or the world for that matter, a commodity) is fixed at market price.

Anything she didn't negotiate to keep on the behalf of Alaska would have been profit kept by the oil company! She did a good thing for alaskan citizens and she brought extra domestic capacity online for the US and got the oil companies to competitively bid (the companies who bid for the right to drill) and pay top dollar to the taxpayers for the right to do so.

Here's a pointer to an aritcle by a conservation group about the alaska permanent fund if you're interested... It's good.

The Alaska Permanent Fund1 is a case study in a new concept of the role of government - that of agent to equitably distribute resource rents to the people, thereby securing democratic common heritage rights to land and natural resources.
http://www.earthrights.net/docs/alaska.html

As far as federal subsidies, I don't get the big deal, 65% OF ALASKA IS FEDERAL LAND!

Alaska is twice as big as texas. What's the taxes per square mile? someone has to pay for that pipeline and all the wildlife preserves. Infrastructure spending is relative to size, not population. But i get it, it sounds weird.