Sarah Palin, the Alaskan governor most famous for sinking the GOP’s presidential campaign and quitting half way through her term, is in the midst of yet another controversy. This one pits her against Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller in a Fox News contributor’s cat fight.
It seems that the company that produced “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” was the beneficiary of over a million dollars in tax credits that were made possible by a law that Palin signed while still governor. When news of this got out, many conservatives took Palin to task for the apparent hypocrisy. As a Tea Party leader, and possible Republican candidate for president, Palin has been a vocal advocate of small government, so this legislation should be as repugnant to her as say…funding for NPR.
Chris Moody of the Daily Caller posted an article on the swirling debate amongst conservatives who found Palin’s position to be inconsistent with her public stance. Palin called the article “ludicrous” and accused Moody of “spinning” the story to give a false impression.
Palin: The accusation hinges on the notion that I signed the legislation into law knowing that it would personally benefit me. That’s absurd.
That is absurd. Because that is clearly not what that accusation hinges upon. The accusation addresses the hypocrisy of opposing big government intrusions on the free market except when they are used to advance her television career. And Despite recently declaring that she was through whining about the media, she opens her Facebook defense by saying…
“Goodness, cleaning up the sloppiness of reporters could be a full time job. In response to The Daily Caller’s online inquiry, I gave them a statement that the writer buried on his story’s second page (which most people won’t even notice – I didn’t even notice it)…”
First of all, what does it say about Palin that she didn’t notice the bright red text immediately following the article that said “NEXT PAGE: Read Palin’s full statements on the tax credit.” Is that her idea of “buried?” Is she really so lazy that, in an article about herself, she fails to observe such an obvious link? Secondly, the statement she gave was a lengthy 671 word defense that was 35% longer than the article to which she was responding.
Ironically, I agree with Palin that the state is justified in providing incentives to boost business. Many states offer tax credits for production companies in order to persuade them to bring their projects and checkbooks. The problem here is that Palin doesn’t agree with Palin. She is an adamant evangelist for small government and regards these sort of initiatives as outside the role of the state.
What’s more, the Alaska measure takes into account the likelihood that an out-of-state film production company may not have significant tax liabilities in Alaska, making the tax credits of little value. So they permit the producer to profit by selling his tax credits to other Alaska-based firms. That means that local oil companies or foresters or fisheries can acquire the deductions at a discount and reduce their contributions to Alaska’s treasury. So the visiting producer and some big corporations are benefiting at the expense of Alaska’s citizens.
Nice work, Sarah.
