[quote=Milkman;754990]She says she supports small and limited government. But I want to know more about this:
Quote:
Quote: Palin Aides Defend Billing State for Time at Home
 Al Grillo/Associated Press
Gov. Sarah Palin and her family live in this home in Wasilla, Alaska. She has often worked from an office in nearby Anchorage rather than in the state capital, Juneau, nearly 600 miles away.
By MICHAEL LUO and LESLIE WAYNE
Published: September 9, 2008
Responding to criticism from Democrats, campaign aides to Gov. Sarah Palin on Tuesday defended her practice of billing Alaska taxpayers for more than 300 nights she spent at home in her first year-and-a-half in office.
Ms. Palin received a “per diem” expense allowance for 312 nights she spent at her home in Wasilla, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
The $60-a-day allowance is available for state employees when traveling on official state business to cover meals and other sundry expenses. Ms. Palin’s per diems, which included some charges for partial days, totaled $17,059, from Dec. 4, 2006, when she took office, through June 30, 2008, the most recent data available, according to Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office. Ms. Palin’s salary is $125,000 a year.
| Link and entire: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us...=1&oref=slogin |
Hold the bus there M/M...Shock! She billed the state for stuff she was allowed to bill!
she billed the state for “lodging” while staying at her own home in Wasilla; the governor’s official home is in Juneau, so technically any nights spent away from there while working entitled her to a hotel per diem. WaPo supplies us with only
one sample expense report which includes an item for “lodging - own residence”, but as
Jonah Goldberg and
David Bernstein note, there’s
no amount listed on that line. She simply noted it, almost as if to say “I’m not charging anything because I stayed at my own residence.” The only amount on the line, $60, is for meals and incidentals (M&IE). The money question, then: Did WaPo simply misread her reports, treating amounts for M&IE as though they were amounts for lodging? Remember, they’ve already
egregiously misread one financial report of hers, generating a smear that still
hasn’t been fully scrubbed away.
Link