Sarah Palin Argues Against Feds Bailing Out State Governments

With 2012 looming on the horizon, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took aim at President Barack Obamas economic policies and argued that the federal government shouldn't send bailouts to the states.

We now know that the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus package didnt lead to the job growth promised by President Obama; instead, it left already struggling state governments even deeper in debt because now they are on the hook to continue programs and projects that were started by these free federal funds, argued Palin. So now, as predicted, folks in Washington and in overspending state capitols are whispering the dreaded b-word: bailouts for individual states!

American taxpayers should not be expected to bail out wasteful state governments, continued Palin. Fiscally liberal states spent years running away from the hard decisions that could have put their finances on a more solid footing. Now they expect taxpayers from other states to bail them out, which will allow them to postpone the tough decisions they should have made ages ago and continue spending like theres no tomorrow. Most Americans would say these states have made their bed and now theyve got to lie in it. They accepted federal dollars and did not voice opposition to the unfunded federal mandates, and they even re-elected politicians who foisted debt-ridden programs on them that could never be sustained.

Palin insisted her tenure as governor of Alaska showed how states should manage their finances when she was forced to deal with an overburdened state pension system.

My home state made the switch from defined benefits to a defined contribution system, and as governor I introduced a number of measures to build on that successful transition, while also addressing the issue of the remaining funding shortfall by prioritizing budgets to wrap our financial arms around this too-long-ignored debt problem, noted Palin. When my state ran a surplus because we incentivized businesses, I didnt spend it on fun and glamorous pet projects for lawmakers though that would have made me quite popular with the earmark crowd. In fact, I vetoed more excessive spending than any governor in our states history, and I used the states surplus to bring our financial house in order by paying down our unfunded pension plans that some other governors wanted to ignore. This fiscal prudence didnt make me popular with the state Legislature. In addition to vetoing hundreds of millions of dollars in wasteful spending, I put billions of dollars into savings accounts for future rainy days, much like most American families do in responsibly planning for the future. I also enacted a hiring freeze and brought the education budget under control through a commitment to forward-funding. I returned much of the surplus back to the people (it was their money to start with!) through tax relief and energy rebates. I had proven as the mayor of the fastest growing city in the state that tax cuts incentivize business growth, and though the state Legislature overrode some of my veto cuts and thwarted an additional tax-relief request of mine, the public was supportive of efforts to rein-in its government.

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