I’m curious – if you increase funding for a program three-fold million, how can any honest person call it a cut?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

Interestingly enough, the money cut was part of what appears to be a block grant for all Covenant House programs, no anything specific to teen mothers. But more to the point, it left intact close to 80% of the funding as she cut the overall spending in the bill by $268 million. And this was not a cut in operating funds – this was a cut in a grant for capital improvements as Covenant House moved its facilities to another location. And what had Covenant House received in the 2006 and 2007 budgets? It was given $1.2 million and $1.3 million dollar by the state. So Palin’s cut meant that the 2008 funding was MERELY TRIPLED INSTEAD OF QUADRUPLED.

How bloated was this particular budget bill? Well, one of the Democrats in the legislature complained at the time that Palin didnÂ’t cut enough.

But Anchorage Democratic Rep. Mike Doogan said legislators were in "sort of your classic feeding frenzy" in putting the capital budget together.
"It's smaller now that she's done some vetoing, but I still think it's too big," Doogan said.

Yeah, you saw that one right – those were the words of a Democrat.
In other words, what we are seeing here is a cheap shot with extra spin following a responsible action by an executive charged with overseeing state spending. And we can be sure that there will be no such criticism of either candidate on the Democrat ticket – after all, neither of them has any experience as an executive, while both of them are known for their success at bringing home the pork.

Or maybe it is just bad math -- you know, becausethey think 1.3*3 is subtraction because the answer is less than 5.

H/T NRO, Malkin, Hot Air

Posted by: Greg at 09:29 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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