Devil Wears Prada
Sarah Palin’s understanding of her role as a state executive isn’t just limited to the exercise of personal vendettas and rank nepotism. It also includes bilking hardworking Alaskans of the tax dollars they earned canning salmon and trucking on frigid ice roads.
In a lengthy report the AP discloses that Palin’s sense of entitlement to public funds was almost unlimited:
Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.
The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.
In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls. [. . .]
What Alaskan wouldn’t be proud that their income taxes helped young Willow and Piper Palin help with this critical act of governance:
In January, the governor, Willow and Piper showed up at the Alaska Symphony of Seafood Buffet, an Anchorage gala to announce winners of an earlier seafood competition.
“She was just there,” said James Browning, executive director of Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, which runs the event. Griffin said the governor’s office received an invitation that was not specifically addressed to anyone.
When Palin amended her children’s expense reports, she listed a role for the two girls at the function — “to draw two separate raffle tickets.”
In the original travel form, Palin listed a number of events that her children attended and said they were there “in official capacity helping.” She did not identify any specific roles for the girls.
Or pay for this little junket:
In July, the governor charged the state $2,741.26 to take Bristol and Piper to Philadelphia for a meeting of the National Governors Association. The girls had their own room for five nights at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for $215.46 a night, expense records show.
Or this precious week of bonding:
In October 2007, Palin brought daughter Bristol along on a trip to New York for a women’s leadership conference. Plane tickets from Anchorage to La Guardia Airport for $1,385.11 were billed to the state, records show, and mother and daughter shared a room for four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House hotel, which overlooks Central Park.
The Palin family has also been shaking down the RNC to pick up some swanky new outfits. Politico reports today that
The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.
The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission’s long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use.
I’d like to hear some folksy common sense from Joe the Plumber on all this since Palin’s bill at Saks alone is almost identical to his yearly income.
Perhaps he’d change his vote if he knew that Obama resoles his shoes.
