I can’t find confirmation for this claim published by Glenn Thrush of Politico:
Palin, who portrays herself as a fiscal conservative, racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla — that amounts to $3,000 per resident. She argues that the debt was needed to fund improvements.
Assume for the moment it’s true; seems as if someone checked with Palin. Those must be some honking big improvements.
Lemmesee … $3000 per resident x 300,000,000 residents of the United States = $900 billion.
That’s additional debt, added over six years, in a state that doesn’t have any state-level taxation instead, each resident gets a check every year for his or her share of the oil revenues.
Now, of course adding the national-level equivalent of $900 billion over six years makes Palin a piker compared to GWB, who added has added $4 trillion over eight years. But as far as I know Wasilla didn’t fight any wars during Palin’s tenure in office.
So now we know how you get to be a hero of the Club for Growth. No need to cut spending while you’re cutting taxes. Just put it all on the kids’ credit card.