Sarah Palin At SRLC

@Wordsmith:, someone… not I… assigned Ivan to the moderation spam filter. Whether for time outs or to monitor his general personal assault tactics, I dunno. Just know I seemed to be the only one that cut him loose. No more. As I said above, he can sit there and rot before I bother to bail him out.

ah yes… Lindbergh spin returns…

Ok, well first off, I never said roads don’t crack or get damaged, what I said is you don’t need more tax money to fix the problem.

Shall we note what you said, verbatim?

That is a pretty extreme argument, the roads were not sinking and collapsing before the increased spending. You are just giving a hypothetical apocalyptic vision with no basis in facts.

A little johnny come lately to reverse yourself, eh?

No, I never mentioned any perfect candidate, but in you bringing up the “perfect candidate”, you are postulating Palin as a candidate that is up for criticism.

Before you attempt reading between lines, you might try learning to read the lines. I didn’t “postulate” Palin as a candidate. I am questioning your criticism of her as a conservative, applying standards you don’t apply to anyone else. I think that begs an answer from you as to just whom you think meets your high threshhold you set for Palin as a governor.

Earmarks don’t increase the budget. It is funny how you criticize politicians who don’t increase the budget or ever vote for an unbalanced budget, but you spend posts defending deficit spending and higher taxes. It just shows you insincerity.

“Earmarks don’t increase the budget”. Hook, line, sinker purchase of Paul’spin. uh huh 🙄 Tell it to the Paul’faithful.

Again you read between lines to make erroneous assumptions. I wouldn’t support a “balance the budget” mandate under any circumstance. That’s a blanket approval for taxes. Congress won’t stop spending, but they can then justify an increase taxes to “balance the budget”. I would, however support a cap on any annual budget based on % of GDP.

Virtually all spending is deficit spending… most especially in a declining economic condition…. since it’s not a cash payment, but funded and requires interest. Playing the “let’s assume the revenue vs spending” game is all well and good, but revenue estimates are just that… estimates. They fluctuate with economic conditions. The only way to insure no deficit spending is to take it out of the state bank account balance, and pay cash for the services immediately. Your self perception as an economic whiz is highly overrated.

You don’t like any spending. I happen to believe that states have a perfect right to decide how to best spend their revenue for their state needs. And transportation/roads etal is a prime example of “needs”… especially in Alaskan climate.

And once again, you are mixing and matching words in regards to economics. I don’t believe it to be intentional, I just don’t think you understand. I never said government borrowing is the exclusive reason for job loss or lack of growth, I said it was a significant contributing factor.

Again another 🙄 I repeat, your self perception as an economic whiz is highly overrated.

Let’s again remind you what @you said that elicited my counter:

You have to realize where the money for bonds comes from. It comes from investors and banks(commercial and investment), so instead of investors and bankers putting money into businesses to create more jobs and help upstart businesses during a down turn, money is reallocated to government pet projects. so particularly in a state like Alaska, with a fluctuating revenue due to shifts in crude oil, reigning in spending is key.

Shall we recap? Now you say you never said “government borrowing” or issuing of bonds to pay for their spending wasn’t the *exclusive* reason ” for job loss or lack of grown.

Uh… where’s that “exclusive” in your above comment that investors/bankers chose bonds over commercial lending to business? Where did you expand to the other “non exclusive” reasons you allude to?

Or shall we all become adept in your skill of reading between the lines and filling in the blanks for convenience?

Sure appears to me that you distinctly said “…*instead* of…” putting money into commercial lending, they purchased bonds. Most smart investors do have diverse portfolios, and not all high risk. So your notion that if the bonds weren’t there, they’d go for commercial lending, is just propaganda for the uninformed.

Look, Lindbergh, I don’t disagree with you on the runaway spending at all levels of government… and most especially the feds. I am likely to give far more leeway to the states since I’m a big 10th Amendment fan. But unlike @you, who said: “I just flat out disagree with increased spending, anywhere, particularly in a recession”, I recognize that as Paulbot delusional in the face of reality. It’s not that I don’t disagree that the necessary spending should be offset by budget cuts. But when you have necessary spending for roads, should you hold those needs hostage until a governor convinces the liberal majority legislature to do the budget cuts? And who pays the price when you refuse to do the necessary spending unless the budget it cut? In this case, it’s those that use the unrepaired roads as part of commerce and necessary travel.

And considering that the budget cuts must be done thru the legislative branches, and not the state admin branches, just how much control does a governor have on slashing budgets? In most cases, any governor is happy to get their legislature to agree to almost any budget cut.

Like I said, your theory is not bad in it’s foundation. It’s just not grounded in political reality. And apparently it’s a political reality you demand only of Palin and Alaska. Serious chutzpah since you aren’t an Alaskan resident. What business is it of yours, anyway?

I did not ignore Conoco Alaska made the most profit, what you are ignoring is that they had to cut hundreds of jobs because of increased taxes. I never said Conoco lost money because of increased Alaskan borrowing,, now that is deliberate lying and obfuscating of my position, and you know it.

I’ll take a mea culpa on that part of my statement, which was followed by the reference to the profit sharing agreement which you called “taxes” generically. No, you did not say it was because of Alaskan borrowing. My error.

You are in error that it is largely because of increased taxes…. or that profit sharing agreement.

The profit sharing is a tax that kicks in when there is “profit”. No profit, no profit sharing taxes. And INRE your comment about government owning the resources…. meaning the citizens of the state…. I will point out to you that the oil company doesn’t own the land either. It’s a lease, not an outright purchase. Since I’ve been privvy to more than a few private mineral/crop leases in my time, if you lease my land and take a resource that belongs to me, it is not socialist for me to negotiate a share of your take of that resource upon sale. It’s done with oil/gas fields, crop farms, tree farms, grazing and mineral rights all over the country daily. That one of the parties happens to be the state government, negotiating on behalf of the residents, doesn’t make it socialism.

And while I’m not a huge fan of the increased burden on the leasee (since it does prohibit expansion) in this case, I find it quite acceptable that the Alaskans chose to do this on their own behalf, and that the state doesn’t keep the profits, but cuts a check to the Alaskans to spend as they see fit.

But while we’re discussing “…deliberate lying and obfuscating of my position…” you said:

Your claims that oil prices declining, rather than higher taxes, simply does not coincide with the fact.

I didn’t discuss oil prices at all, Lindbergh. What I said was supply and demand, and that demand had gone down because of the recession, and both consumers and business tightening their belts. When demand goes down, revenue declines (and prices generally shoot up). When both demand and revenue decline, jobs are lost. You still pay taxes, but on less revenue, and a smaller payroll.

Let’s nail you for another of your lies, or your reading disability. Conoco’s execs did not attribute the job loss to taxes. What they said was:

Conoco officials said they and their contractors did cut jobs in 2009 and that oil industry spending on the major North Slope oil fields is declining now. And, they said, Gara and the other Democrats are misinterpreting their financial statements.

Their spending on the fields is declining because demand was down. The party you are attributing to Conoco execs actually comes from The Alliance… short for the Alaska Support Industry Alliance. They’ve been anti-ACE since the inception, and of course they will use job layoffs… no matter what the reason… to score political points again.

Please, stop blathering about commodities you know nothing about.

hummm…. wouldn’t that best be delivered while standing in front of a mirror?

@Missy, you got it girl. And I must say the depreciation and damage per vehicle, and/or fleet, must be far more than the spent per motorist dollar amount allocated!

Don’t think any Alaskan will be purchasing a classic Austin Healy 3000 anytime soon…. You’ll have to add exhaust pipes to the standard toolkit! LOL

@Old Trooper, it’s always a delight to hear that you and the troops hunch around a computer screen and enjoy the FA crowd. Like Aye and Missy say, you are all money well spent, and there is no amount of honor and thanks we can extend to you all. We can’t wait until the “boots on the ground” are on the homeland soils.

And I assure you, I won’t be digging Ivan out anytime soon. I’m done with that bit. But I attach the bayonet for the homefront battle of words when I deem it necessary. Usually not for the commenter, who is unlikely to be swayed by any amount of facts, reason or logic. But for those who may read the archives and go “hummmmmmm”.