Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Government Giveaway

John McCain’s stump speech ridicules Barack Obama’s middle class tax cut as a “government giveaway” bordering on socialism.

Is that anything like what they do in Alaska?

Welcome to the People’s Republic of Alaska, where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Sarah Palin, the state’s Republican governor. That’s $22,400 for a family of seven, like Palin’s. Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues from state lands, has paid out a dividend on invested oil loot to everyone who has been in the state for a year. But Palin upped the ante by joining with Democrats and some recalcitrant Republican state legislators to share in oil company windfall profits, further fattening state tax revenue and permitting an additional payout in tax funds to residents.

Gee, that sounds a lot like, um, “spreading the wealth” to me.

HT to John Cole.