PALIN WILL ACCEPT THE CASH AFTER ALL…. Remember a few weeks ago, when Sarah Palin said she felt compelled to reject stimulus funds from the federal government? She said, at the time, that the recovery efforts came with too many “strings” and amounted to “an unsustainable, debt-ridden package of funds.”
The plan, according to the governor’s office in March, was to reject more than 30% of the stimulus funds.
Well, never mind all that now. Palin is taking the money.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will sign bills accepting most of the federal stimulus funds available to the state, her spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Palin initially said she would accept only about two-thirds of the $930 million available to Alaska.
Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said the governor changed her mind after the public weighed in during legislative hearings prior to lawmakers passing bills to seek almost all of the funding. […]
Alaska’s Legislature conducted more than 20 public hearings on the federal stimulus package, and legislative leaders said they couldn’t find any of the strings attached to the funds that Palin had warned about. [emphasis added]
That’s the hilarious part. Just a month ago, according to a report in the Anchorage Daily News, Palin said it’s not a gift when Congress offers dollars with strings attached that would increase government and require the state to follow mandates from Washington, D.C. “To me it’s a bribe,” Palin said a month ago.
But when policymakers looked, they couldn’t identify this string scourge, and didn’t see a reason to turn down the money.
It’s not a total loss for Palin — the governor will “turn away … 29 million for a State Energy Program.”
Something to do with “strings.”
