Sarah Palin: The Buck Stops Here

Obama's campaign is working very hard to keep Sarah Palin's experience as the governor of Alaska minimized, if not completely out of the picture.  For good reason.  Even the hint that Palin has had to make hard decisions about an extensive administration on behalf of an entire state's population would put Obama's "experience" in an extremely poor light.  For that reason, Obama keeps calling Palin the mayor of a small town called Wasilla with only 9,000 citizens and a $12 million budget.

As the Governor of a state with an $11 billion budget, Palin had considerable financial responsibility. She was responsible for overseeing the creation of the budget, the determination of expenditures and safe keeping of the citizen's money.  She cut $268 million from the Alaska state budget including money for infrastructure like roads and bridges.  Instead, she put out $315 million in bonds for transportation for citizens to vote on whether they would fund the capital building projects or not.  Including, as it turns out, how to give as much of those citizens their money back. 

Governor Palin emphasized keeping expenditures simple and paying for basic needs.  Basically, Governor Palin was advocating smaller government and efficiency.  Even to the point of ticking off Republicans and Democrats alike for hamstringing their favorite projects.  When it came to making good decisions about providing services and managing citizens' money, the buck stopped at Governor Palin's line item veto pen.

As opposed to Sen. Obama who seems to have spent most of his time in elected office getting as much money from citizens through taxes and earmarks as possible and figuring out how to spend it.  Often on his own pet projects, political cronies and at least $1 million for the University of Chicago where his wife is Vice President of Community Affairs. 

Sen. Obama's campaign platform circles around raising taxes, creating new government bureaucracies and expanding more government control over American lives, health, education and money.  One thing you don't hear from Sen. Obama's campaign is anything about creating government efficiency.  Just more government.  With Senator Obama, the bucks won't be stopping anywhere.  They are going to be flowing out of the taxpayers' pockets into the government coffers in an endless flow.

Sen. Obama is the candidate of change?  More like the same old politics as usual, covered over with some rhetoric about hope and leaving nothing but change in the tax payers' pockets.

Governor Palin has just spent nearly two years over seeing seventeen departments with numerous sub-departments, their personnel, their budgets and any issues that would arrise.  When it came to decision making about the direction of those departments, personnel and performance, the buck stopped at Governor Palin's desk. 

One of those departments was the department of international trade, overseen directly by the governor's office.  Exports from Alaska grew by 12% in 2007 including not only oil and natural gas, but minerals, metals and wood.  Believe it or not, energy is Alaska's third largest export.  Their main export is seafood.  

Senator Obama sits on five committees.  He chairs none.  He has written no legislation.  Except for resolutions honoring this or that person, most of Obama's sponsored or co-sponsored bills remain in committee.  His main claim to fame has been to occasionally attend the meetings when they have fit in to his year long campaign schedule.  Beyond that, his appearance on the lists of committees seems to be check marks for that political campaign for president and lends to no credible experience in decision making or forming any policies or legislation in these commitees.

Obama's sum total of foreign policy experience is to have his name listed on the Foreign Relations Committee. 

In contrast, Sarah Palin has negotiated directly with representatives of foreing nations over resources, trade and border security.  These trade agreements have been worth billions of dollars in revenue for businesses and the state of Alaska.  They include negotiations, trade or enforcement of agreements with China, Japan, Russia, Canada, Germany, Spain and many more nations that Sen. Obama may not even know how to locate on a map, much less has any real experience in dealing with.

Further, if someone thinks that the seafood trade is some minor business with little impact, they will have forgotten their history.  Such as the fact that the fishing rights off of the New England coasts and New Foundland was one of the many reasons that the United States went to war with England in 1812.  The protection of fishing areas and related commerce has nearly led to war or international crisis many times throughout American history.  It takes a capable administrator and effective decision maker to tip toe through the minefield of International trade.

Sen. Obama has talked about talking with leaders of other nations, blamed NAFTA for a loss of jobs and voted to prevent the enacting of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Act).  He's voted against funding the troops, but has gladly taken ear marks for his constituents.  He's missed voting for 45% of the votes taken since he's been in office and he has voted with his own party 96% of the time. 

If this is change, it's a plug knickel. 

Governor Palin recently concluded negotiations to build a natural gas pipeline with TransCanada.  Instead of doing business as usual with the big oil and gas companies, she opened the competition up to bidding.  While some reports are concerned about the pipeline getting built and the cost, when it is built, it will have actually saved the State of Alaska money and will create up to 6,500 immediate jobs and unknown added jobs in the support, transportation, materials and other sectors, putting many Alaskan's back to work.  That's just for starters and does not include the jobs created by improved agreements for minerals, forestry or seafood.

Sen. Obama has done what, exactly, to help stimulate the economy and create jobs?  Particularly, in the private sector?  Literally, nothing.  In fact, his current plans seem to include taxing businesses and citizens in order to create new government programs with new government jobs and new government benefits that will cost the taxpayers even more "new" government ways to take their money.. 

In short, when Sen. Obama, running for President of the United States, has his three and a half year record in the Senate compared to the twenty months that Sarah Palin, running as a Vice President, has been governor of Alaska, he is really, sadly lacking.  It is no wonder he wants to keep everyone focused on Palin's term as mayor of Wasilla. 

In the final analysis, Obama has been talking for over a year about how he would make a great president.  Sarah Palin has actually been doing the walking.  While Sen. Obama had the leisure to vote "not present" whenever he was too busy or the bill was too politically inconvenient, Governor Palin was making the hard decisions every day.  If Sen. Obama wanted to look like he was doing the right thing, he could simply put his name on a bill for co-sponsor.  If it didn't go as planned, he had the cover of at least fifty other Senators to take the blame and save him from his constituents' voting wrath. 

For Governor Palin, the buck stopped here.