Palin Has a Track Record of Managerial Malfeasance: She'd Drill the U.S. Economy into the Ground, Given the Chance

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

With economic news on the front page these days, there's no shortage of claims about what each presidential candidate will do for our country's financial problems. After looking over the evidence, we at BuzzFlash have determined that the McCain/Palin ticket will drill our economy into the ground.

As the evidence of economic incompetence mounts, we realized that, in order to tell this story, we'd have to split McCain and Palin up in order to fully cover the issue. So, today we're tackling the financial record of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but stay tuned for our analysis of Sen. John McCain coming soon.

Obviously, Palin has less of a record to examine than many politicians. Also, since she is the only major party candidate who has not released her tax information, we have no idea about her personal fiscal responsibility. So we're working with what we've got.

Ever since McCain chose her as his running mate, Palin has been struggling to convince Americans that her service as mayor of Wasilla, AK, gives her the executive experience to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. If her work between 1996 and 2002 in the town of approximately 6,000 people is any indication, however, a U.S. economy under her leadership would be in big trouble.

Though the Republican Party has been falling all over itself to present Palin as a fiscal conservative, her leadership history shows she's anything but. After a nail biter of an election, Mayor Palin inherited a balanced budget. It wouldn't be balanced for long, though.

Not that she didn't raise revenues. After slamming her predecessor for doing essentially the same thing, Palin raised the city's sales tax (considered by many economists to be the most regressive tax possible).

In a poorly coordinated effort to build a hockey rink/sports arena for Wasilla, Palin mismanaged municipal funds from the very beginning. She waited way too long to seal the deal to buy the property the rink was supposed to occupy. Because of this, the owner of the property, the Nature Conservancy, sold the land to a real estate investor named Gary Lundgren. Instead of finding another site for the structure (perhaps there wasn‘t enough land to choose from?), Palin marched the city into court.

The city lost the suit on appeal, costing Wasilla residents anywhere from $1.67 million to more than $3 million in legal fees and other unnecessary costs, according to the city‘s attorney.

Lundgren says he offered to give the city some of his land free-of-charge, but Palin decided she wanted to hold out for more. In the end, the city obtained 80 acres of Lundgren's land via an eminent domain grab, which cost them almost seven times more than the cost of the original, larger piece of land in reimbursement dollars. And that doesn't even include legal fees and interest the city had to pay to Lundgren. That may not be the end of it, as Lundgren is seeking more in interest payments. On top of that, the Anchorage Daily News reported in 2006 that the arena itself was still operating at a deficit.

The hockey rink was a microcosm of the fiscal mismanagement visited upon Wasillians over Palin's two terms as mayor. In all, she racked up $20 million in debt for Wasilla, or about $3,000 per resident.

And Palin hasn't improved with time on the economy. In fact, she may be worse now. Earlier this month, trying to capitalize politically upon news of the federal takeover of doomed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Palin said that the bailout was necessary because the two companies were costing taxpayers too much money.  But in reality, taxpayers weren't paying for these Wall St. companies until the buyout. They were, for all intents and purposes, private companies. The government bailout means American taxpayers will now finance their rescue.

It's probably not that Palin was confused; the McCain campaign had been briefed on the issue by the government. But we've got to hand it to her: Palin's explanation does sound better on the stump than the sad truth.

In light of all that, we have to hand it to McCain's top economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, for telling the truth about Palin: The Republican candidate for vice president is not qualified to run a company. We'd like to add to the end of that statement, "...much less the United States of America."

The chances of, should McCain win the presidency, Sarah Palin becoming president are much too large to leave to chance. Her history of drilling into debt is a clear sign of her inability to lead this nation. But it does put her in good (or rather bad) company with other make-believe fiscal conservatives, such as McCain and the Bush Administration.

Stay tuned for our analysis of what Sen. John "economics is not something I've understood as well as I should" McCain would do if we gave him a crack at our broken financial system. You know, the one that he calls "fundamentally sound."

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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