A Bridge Too Far

Palin claimed to have stood up to Congress on the subject of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” the Gravina Island bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, about which we wrote last November.

Palin: I told the Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that bridge to nowhere.

This is not the first time Palin has cited her choice to kill the bridge in 2007 as an example of her anti-waste stance. It’s true that she did eventually nix the project. But the bridge was nearly dead already – Congress had removed the earmark, giving the requested money to the state but not marking it for any specific use. Palin unplugged its life support, declaring in 2007 that the funds would not be used for the Gravina bridge.

When she was running for governor, however, Palin expressed a different position. In 2006, the Ketchikan Daily News quoted her expressing optimism and support for the bridge at a Ketchikan campaign stop.

Palin, 2006: "People across the nation struggle with the idea of building a bridge because they’ve been under these misperceptions about the bridge and the purpose,” said Palin, who described the link as the Ketchikan area’s potential for expansion and growth. … Palin said Alaska’s congressional delegation worked hard to obtain funding for the bridge as part of a package deal and that she “would not stand in the way of the progress toward that bridge.”

Palin also answered "yes" to an Anchorage Daily News poll question about whether she would continue to support state funding for the Gravina Island bridge if elected governor. "The window is now," she wrote, "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." It was only after she won the governorship that Palin shifted her position. And even then, it’s inaccurate to say that she “told the Congress ‘thanks, but no thanks.’” Palin accepted non-earmarked money from Congress that could have been used for the bridge if she so desired. That she opted to use it for other state transportation purposes doesn’t qualify as standing up to Congress.

The bridge reversal is not the only matter throwing doubt on Palin’s credentials as a government waste reformer. Watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has reported that the small town of Wasilla, Alaska, which had not previously received significant federal funds, hauled in almost $27 million in earmarks while Palin was mayor. (McCain has explicitly criticized several of the Wasilla earmarks in recent years.) To help obtain these earmarks, Palin had hired Steven Silver, the former chief of staff for recently indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, as Wasilla’s lobbyist.

And Palin continued to solicit federal funds as governor. A request form on Stevens’ Web site shows that she requested $160.5 million in earmarks for the state in 2008, and almost $198 million for 2009.

Overburdened?

One area where we note improvement is the way Palin attacked Obama's tax proposals – as a burden "on the American economy" rather than, as McCain has been falsely claiming, a direct tax increase on middle-income workers:

Palin: And let me be specific: The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, and raise payroll taxes, and raise investment income taxes, and raise the death tax, and raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars. ... How are you – how are you going to be better off if our opponent adds a massive tax burden to the American economy?

Her tax remarks still cry out for context. Obama proposes to cut taxes for most individuals (81.3 percent of all households would get a tax cut), while raising them only for a relative few at the top, which she did not mention. But she avoided the false claims that McCain continues to make, most recently in a TV ad that wrongly accuses Obama of planning "painful tax increases on working American families." Instead, Palin spoke of the effect of an overall tax increase on jobs and the economy.

It's quite true that Obama's plan would increase taxes overall, by a total of $627 billion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Economists may debate how large or small an effect such an increase would have on jobs and businesses; it's certainly a topic open for discussion in a political campaign.

Riffing Wrongly

In attacking Obama, Palin reeled off a few statements that had a nice cadence, but were light on facts.

Palin: America needs more energy; our opponent is against producing it. Victory in Iraq is finally in sight, and he wants to forfeit. Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay; he wants to meet them without preconditions. Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights.

We have factual problems with three of these statements.

* Obama's not against producing more energy. In fact, he's not even against drilling for oil any more, within limits. He has a $150 billion clean energy program and says that he wants to develop clean coal technology, advance the next generation of biofuels, prioritize construction of the Alaska gas pipeline (surely a measure Palin agrees with) and take a host of other steps to both conserve energy and produce it, in various forms.

* If Obama's comments about meeting with "terrorist states" are worthy of ridicule, then perhaps so are those of the Bush administration and other Republicans. Obama made his first statement on this in an answer to a video question at a Democratic debate last year, when he said "I would" when asked whether he'd meet "separately, without precondition" in his first year with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Reagan, JFK and other presidents had spoken to the Soviet Union regularly, he noted.

In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in June, Obama elaborated, saying that he would take an aggressive diplomatic approach – carefully preparing for such meetings, setting a clear agenda, coordinating with U.S. allies, and not conducting the meetings at all unless they were clearly in the U.S. interest. He also stressed he would "do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

In recent months, the Bush Administration has been more open to beginning a dialogue with the same nations that it once referred to as the “axis of evil.” In July, the president sent a high-level official to Geneva to sit in on nuclear talks with Iran and authorized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to speak with North Korean diplomats about ending that country’s nuclear weapons program. Reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times noted the stark contrast between the administration’s current position about meeting with “foes” and its attitude several years ago.

Further, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in May that we should "sit down and talk" with Iran. So did former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in March. As did Sen. Dick Lugar, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as far back as 2006.

* Obama isn't worried, as Palin said, "that someone won't read them their rights" when it comes to suspected terrorists who are detained by the U.S. He does, however, support the right of detainees to challenge their imprisonment in federal court. That's the same position the Supreme Court took in June in a case called Boumediene v. Bush.