Palin Charged State for Time She Spent at Home

clipped from www.propublica.org This morning's Washington Post takes a bite out of another one of Gov. Sarah Palin's reformer boasts. In addition to touting her supposed opposition to the "Bridge to Nowhere," Palin has crowed about cutting back on the perks of being governor. But as today's Post reports, Palin apparently believes "our citizens should have to pay" for her to live at home. The capital of Alaska is Juneau, but Palin prefers to stay in her family home in Wasilla, which is about 600 miles away. Palin commutes to work in a state office building in Anchorage, a 45-minute drive.

Remember how I said we didn't need to make stuff up to criticize Sarah Palin about? This is an example; there's plenty of stuff to hit her on that have the advantage of being real.

The piece goes on:

Palin has drawn a per diem allowance for 312 nights spent at home since she took office 19 months ago, the Post reports, for a total of $16,951. Per diem expenses are supposed to cover officials when they're traveling on state business. The Post quotes "officials" as explaining that Palin has drawn the per diem because her "duty station" is Alaska's capital, Juneau -- the logic being that in staying at home, Palin is effectively traveling.

That may not seem like much, but there are people for whom $16k is their annual income. Some of those people live in Alaska.