Shop On, Sarah Palin, Shop On!
Sarah Palin does her bit to boost sagging retail sales:
“The Republican National Committee appears to have 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.”
Just think: each and every one of those dollars will not be spent defending a contested Congressional seat. Sarah Palin: shop on!
She does seem to have a talent for getting other people to pay for things, though. And while I don’t mind when she charges the RNC, I might be a bit annoyed if I were a citizen of Alaska:
“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 Bristol 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.
Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor’s children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.
As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events on the governor’s schedule.
But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request by the governor to allow the children to attend.”
Where I come from, when you say that your kids were invited and they weren’t, that’s called “lying.” And when you amend expense reports to say they were on official business when they weren’t, that’s called “falsifying documents.” No doubt that’s because I don’t come from Real America, and haven’t absorbed nearly enough of its timeless moral values.
I can’t help remembering what Sarah Palin told us about her spending habits back in the day:
“I came to office promising major ethics reform, to end the culture of self-dealing. And today, that ethics reform is the law.
While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor’s office that I didn’t believe our citizens should have to pay for.
That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.
I also drive myself to work.
And I thought we could muddle through without the governor’s personal chef – although I’ve got to admit that sometimes my kids sure miss her.”
But sticking the taxpayers with the tab for trips for her kids and luxury hotels — giving that up was a bit too much to ask.
