Palin Left Alaska With Debts Equal to 70 Percent of Its GDP

[kpete]

Source: Washington Independent

Palin Left Alaska With Debts Equal to 70 Percent of Its GDP
By Megan Carpentier 3/30/10 3:41 PM

While Greece’s public debt — which the Goldman currency swaps were designed to help hide — amounts to 113 percent of its GDP currently, it turns out that Greece and its EU partners aren’t the only one keeping debts off the books and using complex accounting techniques to hide them. Mary Williams Walsh reports in The New York Times that many states engaged in the same behavior and, like Greece, are about to face a major reckoning.

..........

New Hampshire and Colorado attempted to use program-specific pots of state money to plug holes in their general treasuries; Connecticut wrote its own accounting rules; Hawaii reduced the length of its school week; and California made its businesses pay their 2010 taxes earlier to make the budget appear more balanced than it is. But one thing every state is doing, including Alaska, is camouflaging its debts by not releasing how much its state employee pension funds will owe — or how far behind it is on its contributions to said pension funds.

Less than a year after then-Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) quit the government to pursue other projects, Alaska leads the way in its debt-to-GDP ratio when its unfunded pension obligations are taken into account, followed by Rhode Island, New Mexico, Ohio and Mississippi. And although Alaska’s ratio is far lower than Greece’s, it does give the state a debt-to-GDP ratio similar to that of Jordan and Palin’s favorite health care resource, Canada, and a higher ratio than Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, India, the Philippines or Uruguay.


Read more: http://washingtonindependent.com/80942/palin-left-alaska-with-debts-equal-to-70-percent-of-its-gdp

[Captain Hilts]

1. Alaska is the US's #1 'welfare queen'. nt

[secondwind]

4. why should we give them our tax dollars? Every man, woman and child in Alaska is

making out BIG TIME, with oil prices so high! Enough, already.

[Captain Hilts]

6. They're rugged, self-supporting, govt.-hating individuals that are hugely govt-subsidized. nt

[Journeyman]

2. Well, how's that brokey debtey thing going for 'em? . . .

[livetohike]

8. Good one!

:toast:

[tomm2thumbs]

17. bonus points +50, high word score +50, free ball and extra flippers

you is good at this!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

24. hahaha

love it. thanks.

[NJmaverick]

3. That's why she quit. That whole governy thingy was way too hard

it's much easier to incite violence.

[fascisthunter]

5. lock her as up.... the deluded broad needs a reality check!

[joeglow3]

7. Unfunded pension liabilites are going to obliterate state and local governments soon

The guaranteed payments employees are promised just are not sustainable (maybe it is the CPA in me, but it is simple math).

[Botany]

9. add that to:

Willow Palin's b. & e. of vacant house ..... drinking, sex, and vandalism
Track Palin's crime spree
Bristol Palin's 1 or 2 kids
Wasilla's Meth Problem
Wasilla's debt
Palin's 2 new cabins w/ a sauna / garage / home shop on some the nicest real estate in Alaska
that Palin never claimed on her taxes even though the cabins were on the Palin's land
Palin's house on the land in Wasilla Alaska that nobody can find out how it was paid for
Palin's double dipping into per diem fundsas governor
Palin pushing a book she never wrote
Palin quitting as governor of Alaska

Sarah Palin is a grifter who is just sucking money from the suckers.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Then isn't it a good thing she resigned last summer?

If she stayed, the state would be filing bankruptcy papers as we speak.

[Stumbler]

11. More "fiscal responsibility" from the Right...

[seabeckind]

12. None of this matters

because it gets NO traction in the media. Just like GOP guys cheating on their wives goes nowhere.

The Rachel C street thing should be getting lots of press but no one outside Rachel's audience sees it. Not even other shows on MSNBC -- definitely not on CNN.

And since the biggest chunk of this woman's base sees only Fox, listens only to the right wing screamers, just where do you think this will bubble up?

And if it does, those same viewers will hear that it's just made up stuff to discredit her. Like the congressman being spit on.

We need the fairness doctrine. Limited media ownership. Elimination of legal monopolies.
But we'll never see it because we don't have it.

<added on edit>

The ONLY way to get thru to her base is to shove their nose in it and hit them with a newspaper.

[Botany]

13. Palin could f*** a goat on stage and yell I am the devil's daughter ...

... and the idiot 20% would say, Sarah loves animals and has family values.

Eric Cantor made up a story about his office window being shot out and
nothing happened to him at all.

The media sucks.

[Turborama]

20. DUZY!

I'm going to remember that analogy for future use. Thanks for the laugh!

[Ignis]

22. "Sarah loves animals and has family values"

Oh, you're good! Well played. :thumbsup:

[pinboy3niner]

15. A newspaper? What's that?

Lotsa luck introducing that newspaper thingey to the Palinistas. I absolutely agree that this kind of thing has no traction at all. Not sure about the fairness doctrine--not something I see as a high priority. But I think the only way to get through to her base is through the TV machine. I'm not sure they can read . . .

[HCE SuiGeneris]

23. It is more than troubling.

Democracy has been usurped by a corrupt fourth estate.

[KansDem]

14. In 2005, Alaska got back $1.84 in federal spending for every dollar paid to the federal government

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

It was no. 3, behind New Mexico and Mississippi.

[Winterblues]

16. Exact opposite of what is in the Capital city's paper today

http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/033110/sta_598534194.shtml
State repays it's Debt


By Pat Forgey | JUNEAU EMPIRE
A combination of high oil prices and spending restraint has Alaska poised this year to do what few thought possible - repay billions the Legislature borrowed from the Constitutional Budget Reserve in recent years.
Legislators, who only recently were trying to assign blame for deficits, are now claiming responsibility for paying back the borrowed money.
Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, said the supplemental budget - passed this week by the House of Representatives and soon to be considered by the Senate - is historic in nature. It contains $401 million to make the final payment to the CBR, from which the state had borrowed $4.45 billion over the years.
Voters created the fund in 1990. It is funded with legal settlements from oil tax and royalty disputes. Ten times before 2006, the state dipped into the CBR to balance its budget.
By the start of this fiscal year, billions had been paid back; with this year's $401 million appropriation, the payback will be complete
"With the passage of this bill, the Constitutional Budget Reserve will have been made whole," said Hawker, who carried the bill and guided its passage as co-chair of the House Finance Committee.
The supplemental bill passed 40-0, with support from both Republicans and Democrats.
<snip>
A few years ago, he pointed out, he and his colleagues were wearing buttons that proclaimed the "Senate is on a Savings Spree" as they fended off calls to use the money for other things.
Ellis said he was happy to see the CBR repaid in the House supplemental budget.
"I know that people are crowing about that in the House; good for them," he said.
He also praised Gov. Sean Parnell for joining the effort to replenish the reserve fund.
"There's been a real coming together for fiscal responsibility," he said.
The state currently has more than $8.6 billion in the Constitutional Budget Reserve, an amount that will total more than $9 billion after the additional contribution. That money is intended to help soften the blow of future oil revenue declines.
The state also projected another budget surplus this year, for the fourth year in a row, which will lead to additional savings.

[joeglow3]

18. This is because they are only looking at cash flows

The problem is state and city government cannot afford to fund their pension liabilities. These WILL begin to come due and when they have not been funded, these government entities will be in a WORLD of hurt. Our small city (Omaha) is looking at $500,000,000 of unfunded pension liabilities.

[truthisfreedom]

19. Hey Sarah, how's that cutty runny thing going for ya?

[tedk_355]

21. god i hate this woman