This editorial appeared in The Anchorage Daily News.
It's hard to understand why Gov. Sarah Palin is reluctant to take Alaska's full $930.7 million share of federal stimulus money. Failure to take the money will hurt our economy, cost jobs and deny extra help to the state's school children.
Rejecting $288 million of Alaska's share, as Palin has indicated she might do, will help the national debt little, if at all. Big chunks of money the governor is considering rejecting will simply be redistributed to other states. Does Gov. Palin want to send Alaska jobs to California?
Last month, Gov. Palin said she was accepting only stimulus money for construction and not $288 million designated for other purposes. She asserted (sometimes incorrectly) that there are strings attached to parts of the package. She complained that taking all the money would grow government and add to the national debt.
Palin soon modified that stance, saying she was still considering what funds to accept but wanted the Legislature to weigh in.
This week, she suggested accepting $93 million in federal stimulus education funds she previously spurned, but only if an equal amount of state funding were taken out of the education budget.
To read the complete editorial, visit The Anchorage Daily News.