Note to Sarah Palin: Your Miraculous Free-Market Donuts Wouldn't Exist Without Public Dollars

[marmar]

Note to Sarah Palin: Your Miraculous Free-Market Donuts Wouldn't Exist Without Public Dollars


Here's Steve Benen, with the recap of Palin's 'WTF' moment:

You know what we need is 'a spudnut moment.' And here's where I'm going with this, Greta.... Well, the spudnut shop in Richland, Washington -- it's a bakery, it's a little coffee shop that's so successful, 60-some years, generation to generation, a family-owned business not looking for government to bail them out and to make their decisions for them. It's just hard-working, patriotic Americans in this shop.

"We need more spudnut moments in America. And I wish that President Obama would understand, in that heartland of America, what it is that really results in the solutions that we need to get this economy back on the right track. It's a shop like that.

And here comes reality to mug the Alaska Quitbull, courtesy of one of Digby's readers:

Palin's quirky invocation of the "Spudnut Shop" here in Richland Washington as an example of American "can-doism" is far more ironic than you and most of your readers likely realize.

The fact is, the town of Richland was literally built by the federal government as a part of the Manhattan Project. All of the houses that surround the Spudnut shop were built by the Army. To this day, the only employer in Richland of any consequence is the Department of Energy and the contractors that work on DoE contracts at the Hanford site, just north of Richland. As a result, virtually all of the Spudnut shop's customers are paid by tax dollars. Those that aren't are retirees, drawing government pensions and social security.

Were it not for government spending, the Spudnut shop would be bankrupt in a week.

And one of Andrew Sullivan's readers weighs in as well:

The Spudnut shop Palin speaks of is half a mile from my house in Richland, WA and it's really good (the secret is potato flour in the batter). She may not realize that the federal government buys most of those doughnuts: the annual budget for cleanup of the nearby Hanford Nuclear Reservation is more than $2 billion, employing about 11,000 workers, and spudnuts are the pastry of choice at meetings there.

Yes, those public sector workers getting laid off left and right buy donuts, as well as other goods and services that keep private firms like Spudnuts in potato flour.


By Joshua Holland | Sourced from AlterNet
Posted at January 29, 2011, 12:23 pm


http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/454322/note_to_sarah_palin%3A_your_miraculous_free-market_donuts_wouldn%27t_exist_without_public_dollars/

[MineralMan]

1. Nice!

[xchrom]

2. Awesome smack down. Nt

[spooky3]

3. I just can't resist the obvious - how about those public sector police officers?

I hear they like spudnuts too...

[chelsea0011]

4. So, a small business has been making a go of it for generations with

the evils of federal regulations and over taxation? And tomorrow she and her other ilk will have a Joe the Plumber type who can't make a go of it because of the federal government. They want it every which way. And is nice just to make notice of what appears to be a great small business selling as great product and just leave it at that. But no. She has to go the extra worthless mile and show again why she is a fool.

[underpants]

5. Hilarious. Alaska suckles on the teat of the Feds and oil companies.

85% of the state budget is paid by oil companies. They "nationalized" their resources.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. It's written into Alaska's constitution.

The people of the state own the resources. That's how we get a permanent fund dividend. We all know Alaska is socialist, and we like it that way.

[Old Time Pagan]

16. Ah Blue, say it ain't so

All you hard working, freedom loving, patriotic 'Muricans are really pinko, socialistic, commie loving traitors to our capitalistic way of life?

Say it ain't so Blue.

[bvar22]

17. Sarah also RAISED taxes on Corporate Profits (Oil Comapnies),

and INCREASED the distribution to Alaskans.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/08/30/palin-raised-taxes-on-oil-company-profits-to-give-citizens-an-equitable-share-will-mccain/

Sarah Palin was the most Socialist Governor the USA has seen in a while.

If she would pledge to RAISE TAXES on US Corporations, especially those involved in extracting and Harvesting our Natural Resources, and redistribute that money directly to the citizens,
I would consider voting for her.

The downside is that she imposed an indirect TAX INCREASE on citizens in the other 49 states who had to pay the increase in Oil Prices at the pump.

[Angry Dragon]

6. sarah can see her stomach when she sticks her

head up her @ss

Can we throw mccain in jail for bringing this thing
into the national spot light??

[Hydra]

19. It wasn't McCain's fault

Feel free to send mobs of people with rotten fruit to throw at him anyway- he's earned it.

No, Palin was as predictable as our party was stupid during the Primaries. There was a firm odor of sexism at the last part of the battle, and the RNC thug tacticians did one of these:

Thug 1: "...Did you just see that?"
Thug 2: "...Uh-huh...I still can't believe it though..."
Thug 1: *excited* "I know! I never thought they would give us such an obvious opening!"
Thug 2: "You think we should...?"
Thug 1: "Does a duck quack? Of course we should! A woman! ANY woman!"

And...it worked WAY too well.

[Angry Dragon]

21. Without mccain she would still be up in Alaska

plying her stupidity up there

[Hydra]

22. Her socialism, even!

But no, had she not been available, it would have been ANY woman. Palin's role in this has been to erase the idea that there are no women in the Repub ranks. Recall the "Pink Elephants" PR event.

[JBoy]

7. "Alaska Quitbull". I like that!

[marmar]

15. Me too.

nt

[rurallib]

8. and even if it wasn't built by the Army

it still has streets to it, uses electricity (isn't Washington's electricity publicly owned? Even if not gummint still provided the structure to allow it to be built.), the internet, garbage pickup - on and on..........

[jmowreader]

14. Washington's electricity is largely due to the evil government...

which started the Bonneville Power Administration. BPA is the reason the Pacific Northwest isn't a pit of despair. Thanks to really fucking cheap power they were able to build aluminum smelters up here, which supplied the Boeing Company with aluminum at a low cost.

[bluestate10]

9. Again, Sarah Palin shows herself to be a poorly informed idiot. Yawn to her. nt.

[SpiralHawk]

10. Bwaaa ha ha ha - plop goes another stinky Palin into the outhouse pit

Such totally phony made-up Bullshit - she is a Compleat Republicon, fer sure.

[upi402]

11. Sarah, y'all have shat everywhere. You WILL step in it

So just stop, Sarah. Stop.

[nxylas]

13. Even if Spudnuts didn't need public money, Palin would still be missing the point

Her handlers probably thought it would be real clever to use Spudnuts as a pun on Obama's "sputnik moment". But a small family-owned business can make and sell donuts. Do Palin's speechwriters think they could also mount a space program? Idiots.

[Quezacoatl]

18. If it wasn't for the response to Sputnik

Palin may not have her favorite method of communication:



The USSR's launch of Sputnik spurred the United States to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA or DARPA) in February 1958 to regain a technological lead

1957 - October 4th - the USSR launches Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite.
1958 - February 7th - In response to the launch of Sputnik, the US Department of Defense issues directive 5105.15 establishing the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
The organization united some of America's most brilliant people, who developed the United States' first successful satellite in 18 months. Several years later ARPA began to focus on computer networking and communications technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_internet#History

[Hannah Bell]

20. palin knows all that. one side of her family is from richland.

i wouldn't be surprised if they worked for the feds. or else in ranching.

on edit: here it is

The Tri-City Herald reports Palin arrived late Wednesday from Orlando, Fla. The former Republican vice-presidential candidate planned to have dinner at the Richland home of her aunt Katie Johnson, a sister of Palin's mother.

Palin's grandparents, Clem and Helen Sheeran, moved to Richland in 1943 so he could work at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010361904_apwapalinthanksgiving1stldwritethru.html

guess the grandparents were leeches of the public tit

[BenjaminFranklin]

23. illustrates why teabagginng conservatives are clueless

Any cut in government spending is going to hurt someone. Republicans want to protect people who will feel it the least.