Secessionist Sarah and Her Stay-at-Home Subsidies
By now you’ve heard of Sarah Palin’s brilliant way of easing tensions between family and career: she has billed Alaska for her girls to travel to her official events (Jane hits it here and Christy here).
In separate filings, the state was billed about $25,000 for Palin’s daughters’ expenses and $19,000 for her husband’s.
Flights topped the list for the most expensive items, and the daughter whose bill was the highest was Piper, 7, whose flights cost nearly $11,000, while Willow, 14, claimed about $6,000 and Bristol, 17, accounted for about $3,400.
One event was in New York City in October 2007, when Bristol accompanied the governor to Newsweek’s third annual Women and Leadership Conference, toured the New York Stock Exchange and met local officials and business executives. The state paid for three nights in a $707-a-day hotel room.
Think about it! If women everywhere just billed their employers for lugging their kids on business trips, it would strengthen families and make it easier for women to sustain vibrant careers. And I’m sure the corporations picking up the tab won’t mind about the cost, given the way it would strengthen families …
But that’s not the most interesting aspect of today’s Palin scandal du jour, IMO. I’m more interested in the way that Palin’s actions have effected a policy change that the Alaska Independence Party–those loony secessionists her husband was officially affiliated with not so long ago–has been pushing for some time.
Along with wanting to separate from America, you see, the AIP has long supported efforts to move the state capitol from Juneau to some place more central–some place like the Mat-Su Valley (Palin’s home) or Anchorage. And that’s what Palin has effectively done–at least in her role as Governor.
Palin’s Support for Moving the Capitol
As Governor, Palin’s first purportedly anti-Juneau act came when she took the oath–it in Fairbanks, not Juneau. Then, she told her Commmissioners they didn’t have to live in Juneau.
But overall in the last few months she’s seen less of Palin, who’s moved most of her operations up to Anchorage, the biggest city in Alaska and a place much friendlier to the sort of conservative pro-business pro-drilling stance that’s marked her tenure as governor. “She had started off by telling her Commissioners that none of them had to live in Juneau, which makes Juneauites nervous. We’re always convinced that they’re going to try and move the State Capitol again.”