Sarah Palin slashed funding for…unwed teenage mothers (?!?!)
This woman is really something else:
ST. PAUL — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.
After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.
According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”
Translation: Passage House is a place for Bristol Palin, if Bristol Palin hadn’t been fortunate enough to be the daughter of the governor of Alaska. And Bristol Palin’s mother cut funding for it. Wowzers. Typical, though. “Pro-family” people are only pro-their-own-families and even then, not necessarily. What’s really effing mindnumbingly insane about this, as Atrios points out, is that this place provides help for girls who…choose life.
Yes, everyone, observe the Republican in its natural habitat, without the dogwhistle rhetoric meant to inflame the sentiments of the dumbest citizens of this great nation. This is how their policies play out in the reality-based community.
Sickos.
September 4, 2008 at 1:19 pm
The Post account ignores the fact the money received by the teen shelter was a threefold increase in prior year’s grant funding. She increased spending; she did not slash these funds.
http://wthrockmorton.com/2008/09/03/sarah-palin-did-not-slash-funds-for-teen-mothers/
September 4, 2008 at 2:49 pm
It’s still quite a place to cross out money, isn’t it, Dr. Throckmorton?
September 4, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Typical Republican “budget-cutting” strategy. Cut it out for the “least of these” who REALLY need it.
VERY Christian, sir.
Sorta like when John McCain bitches about “out-of-control spending in Washington,” yet bristles at any suggestion that we stop hemhorraging billions of dollars in his pet wars.
September 6, 2008 at 11:57 am
Warren is correct. The article is both incorrect and misleading. Check the facts:
Covenant House Alaska grant income received from the State of Alaska:
(2006) $1.2 million
(2007) $1.3 million
(2008) $3.9 million
In 2008, Covenant House Alaska asked the state for $10 million to assist in the building of a new $22 million facility. The legislature appropriated $5 million, and Governor Palin used her line-item veto to limit this year’s grant INCREASE to $2.6 million (a total grant this year of $3.9 million). Additional money will be allocated for this capital expenditure project over the next few years, a phased-in grant rather than all the money at once.
This was confirmed in a quote from the Executive Director of Covenant House Alaska, Deirdre Cronin:
“Despite some press reports to the contrary, our operating budget was not reduced. Our $3.9 million appropriation is directed toward a multi-year capital project and it is our understanding that the state simply opted to phase in its support for this project over several years, rather than all at once in the current budget year.”
September 6, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Interesting.
Of course, this was somewhere around reason #185 why Sarah Palin shouldn’t be anywhere near the White House, so it doesn’t change anything.
This was just icing on the cake.