only 312 nites….is she realted to the Shrub?

like Jane sez,nice work if you can get it………….what a mockery when ordinary peeps are being drivenot of their homes in droves…….Republicans are the worst at Government

Perhaps there’s no Governor’s residence in Alaska, only a room at the Motel 6. Hope they left the light on for her.

I do my own taxes, but aren’t there IRS rules about this type of thing? Some sort of definition of expense reimbursement vs. income?

one of the problems is our representatives have refused to call her lies lies

this is stealing plain and simple

Fiduciary obligations; what fiduciary obligations? She’s a Republican or a Jesus freak, when it’s convenient. They set their own legal and ethical standards. Leave Saraaaaaaaaaa alooooooooone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Geez. Whenever I’ve been on travel of some sort receiving a per diem (and FWIW, I think the 50 mile thing is one way and based on Federal/IRS policies), I have tended to not take any per diem for the noon meal under the premise that I would most likely be eating lunch out no matter where I was.

And most firms and contracts I’ve worked under, we had to provide receipts for lodging, meals, rental cars, dry cleaning, or whatever expenses being claimed. About the only exception to that was if I was in a “low cost” area where a flat rate for 3 meals was provided, usually of $25 per day.

And Anchorage, Alaska was not considered a “low cost” area when I was on travel up there for two months a few years ago.

I’m beginning to think that someone needs to book the entire McCain vetting team into a Holiday Inn Express for a few nights. They could use the boost. *G*

If we’ve got some accountants around today, I’d love to hear what you all think on this.

yes shes a SHREW ,yes she is a CRACKPOT….will the media ever open PANDORA PALINS box??????

Both Wasilla and Anchorage are closer to Russia. Obviously, she was keeping an eye on those pesky Russians. National Security is always a priority for Republics.

$43K in “travel” expenses for Todd and the kids…that’s a year’s salary for many people.

Hi Christy! Those pesky rules only apply to us little people.

“When the governor does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

the myth of the gifted Pandora…watch out

In revenge, Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the god of smiths, to craft a gorgeous woman out of earth and water. The beautiful goddess of Love, Aphrodite, was asked to pose as a model, just to make sure the woman was perfect. Once this was done, the Four Winds (or some say Hephaestus himself) breathed life into her and there she lay sleeping, brand spanking new!

The first mortal woman on earth was to be bestowed with unparalleled charm and beauty, and her unknown mission would be to bring mischief and misery upon the human race. Zeus then summoned the other Olympians and asked them each to give this new creation a gift.

“The Perils Of Palin”

The Perils of Palin (1914), a silent film episodic serial, is considered the most famous suspense serial in cinema history. Sarah Palin was the most famous star of the silent serials, known for their archetypal cliffhangers that left audiences wondering what would happen in the next chapter.

The daring, athletic and active female star performed some of the riskiest, hair-raising stunts in these films (stranded on the side of a cliff, in a runaway balloon, in a burning house, etc). Week after week, Palin evaded attempts on her life. She fought pirates, Indians, gypsies, rats, sharks, and her dastardly guardian.

Her most famous stunt – in which she was tied – LYING on the railroad tracks and had to be rescued from a speeding, rapidly-approaching McCain – was filmed near New Hope, PA at a place now known as “Palin’s Trestle”.

Christy, thank you for keeping on digging. Somebody’s got to do it. And you-know-who (msm) won’t. Do you think at some point we need to ease up on Palin? Is she taking our eyes off McCain? Or is it important enough to debunk the “mavrick” b.s., because that’s all they’re erunning on (besides stories we’ve heard 1,000 times)? I dunno.

Yep, it is high. Although with five kids and most of the travel in AK being by plane back and forth, I think that can likely be justified so long as it was for state events at which the first family would have been required to attend (Christmas tree lighting, stuff like that).

But there are expenditures in that article that I found odd. Hope to have more on that in a bit…

It would be really nice if this kind of stuff was blasted over the airwaves for republicans like they do for democrats. But, they don’t. And won’t.
There is enough crap out there about Parahsalin that would make The War on Gore in 2000 look like a tickle fight, but things haven’t changed since then.

Our biggest foe in this election is the media, and despite repeated attacks on them at the RNC by the Rs, the truth won’t be televised.

Until and unless Obama takes off the gloves and comes out swinging, we are well and truly fucked.

T-

By the way, do you know the federal debt ceiling went from about $5.5 trillion to over $10 trillion under bush? I bet most “fiscal conservatives” voting for McCain don’t. Who’s fault is that, Obama?

Have you heard? Lieberman has been booted from party lunches and weekly chairmans meetings.

Looks like there’s only one Motel 6 in AK: Anchorage
But there’s three Holiday Inn Express: Anchorage, Fairbanks, Seward

No wonder McCain didn’t vet her. He couldn’t find a fancy enough place to stay.

I’m sure he’s heartbroken and will be allowed back in for a $250,000 contribution.

Drip, drip, drip. The stuff will keep coming because Sarah Palin, who appears to be as bad a governor as W is president, made a real error. She campaigned against her own party in Alaska. Therefore, she has no one to bury all her bodies. There are a lot of people out for revenge up there, and they are going to talk.

And since she, McCain, and the GOP have sought to make her family a campaign issue, you will be hearing more and more about them. Other politicians, in the past, such as Mario Cuomo, have shunned the national spotlight to keep their family and personal lives away from such scrutiny,

When you chose to let it all hang out, sometimes you and your famly get worked over, unfortunatley.

Everything I hear about this lady reminds me more and more of Georgie.

You know, I go back and forth on that. But this article caught my eye just from a public corruption standpoint. Having been the city attorney for a small municipality here at one point, I know what we had to do for reimbursement vetting for any city officials in terms of documentation requirements and everything else. Because the town was subject to periodic state budget audit, you had to follow everything to the letter.

Most governmental entities are that way due to their fiduciary obligation to account for money spent from the public’s pocket. And this story just sounded hinky to me. When I started poking around a little early this morning in the state regs online, I kept finding things that didn’t add up…and I felt like I ought to point them out. If I can find it online, MSM folks should be able to as well, eh?

Any evidence of a paid-leave maternity policy, or how many days she took advantage of it, if any?

Heh, no more reporting back to the Repub caucus for Slow Ride.

Isn’t Lieberman needed to travel with McCain and feed him answers? He can’t attend lunches and meetings when Grampy needs answers whispered in his ear.

OT – I watched an Olberman video which had McCain leading Palin into a gathering. Palin darted over to the side and started shaking hands. McCain then followed her lead. As soon as his back was turned, she darted up onto the stage ahead of him. The choreography was interesting and I don’t think she plans on being vp very long. This woman does not take the back seat.

From what I’ve seen of her church on YouTube, I think she is convinced that she is on God’s mission to turn the US into a theocratic state. Laws and rules don’t bother her; her ignorance doesn’t bother her. She is sure and confident that she has been annointed.

heckuva late job, Harry.

Too much Palin for ya, pups? Well, then, take a gander at Daddy’s Little Princess with Meredith Vieira today. [oh, that wacky NBC, what won’t they stir up next….]

Well, I’m not an accountant (although I played one in the Air Force for almost 6 years) but I have billed both federal and state governments for travel expenses over the years.

Most expenses required a receipt in order to be reimbursed and even then had to be documented correctly. As an example, I was on Federal travel one time where I was gone for 3 weeks. I sent clothes out from the hotel to be laundered every four or five days, resulting in a bill of roughly $25 each time. Unfortunately, at the time, the max payable for any one day for cleaning was $10 so I wound up swallowing about $50 total of cleaning bills when I was trying to be more efficient

If I left home for a trip before 6AM, I could claim b’fast; leaving after 6AM I could not. If I arrived back home at the end of a trip before 6PM, I could not claim supper; if I got home after 6PM, I could claim supper.

The travel had to be farther than 50 miles one way.

And there are all sorts of other rules that come into play depending on the state, federal and type of expense being claimed.

Yes – Reid doesn’t want him around when they talk strategy – nice of him to show a little backbone.

Yep. He is definitely following her lead, or she is just dashing to it and he’s left the chump. How appropriate.

Another off-topic:

I’m now relocated from Lawrence, KS to Butte, MT, so if there are other FDL people who are my new neighbors, give me a shout.

OT, but a caller to the Thom Hartmann show says that they have started “push polling” in Michigan. “Would you still vote for Obama if you knew he was a Muslim?” McCain has been dominating the airwaves in Michigan and now they have started push polling. If Obama, continues his triangulation and “can’t we all just get along” he’s going to clubbed to the ground by the Republians just as Rodney King was by the LA police.

Oh, McMeghan, tell that to the Tillmans.

It is pretty sleazy to take money for living in your own home and you shouldn’t charge the state for your kids or husband either. The voters elected ONE person to office, not the family. As we have seen in the last few years, many elected officials have a made a career milking the taxpayers to finance an upscale lifestyle. She ran for office and then accepted the job when elected. She should not expect the state to reimburse family expenses, and she should live in the Governor’s residence. The residence is there so that she is accessible for state business. I don’t she is ready for prime time in a multitude of areas, but it is up to the Democrats to point this out to the voters and they don’t have a good track record of street fighting.

Has Lieberman received one of the “strongly worded letters”? That always seems to work.

Crap – Reid just denied it -

Yeah, and the AK regs and the charts that line them out are very detailed. Plus there is a whole Q&A FAQ that I link above as well that talks about a lot of that. None of the answers that I could find anywhere — on any of these state documents — said that day trips too and from the office she was using in Anchorage (42.2 miles away from Wasilla) would qualify because it was a regular “to the office” sort of trip. The only way it would work under the regs that I could figure out is if she’s claiming the Juneau mansion as her “primary residence” or if she has some special exemption to do so from the state — and that would have to come from the finance department and/or state auditor, if I’m reading this correctly.

It’s hard to do a really fast read of another state’s rules and regs, though, so if you all see something I’m missing, please let me know.

Thanks for pushing on this, Christy.

As for those who are complaining about coverage, the WaPoo article is on A1. I’m not aware of any mentions of this particular scandal until they broke it this morning. I’ve been stuffing envelopes for my Congressional candidate this morning, so I haven’t been able to look and see if any other outlets have picked this up yet. Let’s hope that the digging by folks here and other places in the blogosphere can keep the story alive and moving through more of the M$M.

On a related note, has the scandal of rape victims in Wasilla having to pay for rape kits while Palin was mayor been seen in the M$M yet?

PS: Spread the word, Sarah Palin is a Vandal.
[Her degree is from the University of Idaho, their team name is Vandals, tee hee.]

See my 21.

SIGH two steps forward, a giant leap back to square one.

How anal.

I’m not sure an expense report audit enema is going to sway the low information voters. They will see the inquiry as petty. The media will be likewise uninterested.

Unfortunately, a game changer is warranted here. Now.

T-

they should be able to.

part of me says that we need to go after her because for all purposes of the campaign, she’s gone top the top of the ticket. she’s the big draw and creating all the excitement. I was hoping all along he’d tyake Pawlenty. ioh well. can’t do anything now.

part of me says going after her on stuff like this takes away ferom the braoder message. I guess the trick is to integrate the two …. fit these revelations into the braod message that BO is the “real” change type person and those other two are bogus politicians who will just give more of the same.

Digg It.

and she made a big thing of … “I drive to work, we didn’t need that plane.”

I work for the Federal gov.

Perdiem for a single day requires a trip exceeding 50 miles one way and workday exceeding 12 hours. Our staff often travels more than 200 miles a day and they don’t receive perdiem.

I also had a duty station 200 miles from my home. For five months I traveled to my duty station and stayed with my parents and traveled home on the weekend. I was not reimbursed for travel or did I receive any perdiem. I was not eligible. It would be interesting to know the rules for congressmen. They are black and white for federal employees.

Is being governor of Alaska a full time job? Seems like she has been home 43% of the time. Was she home during the meeting she called in Juneau. If she likes to cook at home does that mean that evening meetings are off limits?

Dugg you Digg ratfood! Come on pups push this one over the top!!

Would she be willing to take up residence in the White House were the president die in office? Perhaps we should spare her the prospect of that inconvenience.

They’ve got to stop taking Palin seriously. I say that every time they are asked about Palin, they have to say something like: “They can’t be serious. She’s a joke. If this character is really what the Republican Party wants to put forward as a candidate for Vice President, they need to be medicated. Why don’t they just run Anne Coulter and be done with it?”

When you are dealing with tax payer dollars, it is in the best interest of you as an individual, your employer and everyone else involved to be anal about expenses.

I was a direct federal employee when I had the experience with the laundry and one of the key items as a fed employee was we had to be that much more circumspect and avoid even the appearance of a conflict.

The rules are quite simple really. Document everything. If it’s legit, we can justify it. If it’s not, you can’t tap dance fast enough to cover it up.

There are other prominent Democrats who could and should go after Palin. Not going after her makes Democrats appear to agree with her versions of the stories.

McSame and Palin will make the Bush Crime gang look like pikers in terms of plundering the public cofers. And that is saying something!

True to form, government is not about service, it is me, me, me. Cronies, Cronies, Cronies…..the peons be damned!

It takes an imperial mind to run an empire.

I’ll raise you: The U.S. went from the world’s largest creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor nation under Ronnie Reagan, FWIW. ;-)

Did anyone else notice that Palin licks her lips like the Joker in Dark Knight?

That’s true when Republics are in charge of government.

Can the phone calls be tracked to a location if so a nice demonstration there and strike could be used to call attention to LIES. Get the local papers and tv there and let them know why.

I have a theory about how things are going . . . and why? When R’s cannot speak to policy issues, and when they have accepted public financing (and therefore have less campaign funds)—they need to do some real MAGIC—misdirect attention from the one shiny object for a moment, and VOILA—a new shiny object appears.

Selecting Sarah Palin but the kibosh on any residual effect from the stirring Democratic speeches and talking points post-convention. The R’s have gotten significant amounts of ‘free advertising’ in the form of pseudo-news stories. While there is little content to the NEWS stories, they successfully implant the brand name (McCain) in the public consciousness. My prediction, therefore, is that the Palin story will run for another week or two. (Surely there are a few remaining “newsworthy” skeletons to fill the internet and airwaves.) Then, Ms. Palin, after much reflection, will consider it her Christian duty, her moral duty to take care of family and to honor her promises to Alaskan citizens. She will withdraw. And then we will be blasted with more pseudo-news, covering her morality, her conscience, her Motherhood-and-apple-pie integrity. All the time, “Palin” will not appear in headlines unless it is associated with “McCain.” More “free advertising”’ more brand-name recognition.

Then we will have a week or two of flapping and speculation, as McCain (and Rove) search for a Palin replacement. Another interval filled with talking points, personalities and absolutely no substance. When a replacement is selected, he/she will have to be ‘vetted’ by the media. Still more brand-recognition, more flap about nothing.

This should all take us very close to election day—and the Republicans will have achieved their dream. Keeping their candidate in the public eye without EVER having to address policies, issues, or anything else of real substance. WHAT A PLAN! And it appears to be working. What miracles can be wrought . . . even on a shoestring budget . . . with a stenographic “media.”

She just can’t wait to start tasting the plunder.

Commuting expenses – not deductible. Tax home – likely Juneau. Therefore, additional gross income very likely, if not already reported.

I don’t disagree.
However, I think most of the public who’s ever had to fill out an expense report has lost a few receipts and will be sympathetic to her on this issue. And there is, by far, a vast majority of people that have fudged expense reports than haven’t.

I’m not saying that this is not a symptom of a bigger problem, but I don’t think it will be an issue in the minds of voters.

Now if there are systemic violations that involve significant dollar amounts, it might, I repeat might get a mention on a newscast or page A14.

It’s the same crime gang.
McPalin is just the useful idiot.

T-

The only things Republicans care about is winning elections so they can divide up the spoils amongst themsevles, like any good barbarian.

I am a fed too. Over three years ago, they told me to go home and never, ever show up at the office again. Still paid, no work….they also fired my temporary employee wife.

Stood up to illegal acts in environmental…

All the bad guys/girls got promoted since. Bet they fudge on the per diem, too.

PEER rocks!

If Obama, continues his triangulation and “can’t we all just get along” he’s going to clubbed to the ground by the Republians just as Rodney King was by the LA police.

That’s my fear, right now. Obama’s ads are too weak to be effective on the undecideds. We need to unleash some Dem 527 “pit bull” ads and quick…I don’t want to relive 2004 all over again.

They’ve got to stop taking Palin seriously.

I couldn’t agree less. A capricious, vindictive end-ofdays fundamentalist with her finger on the dooms-day button is the scariest and most serious thing I can imagine.

Travelling to and from work does not count for the 50 mile exemption(each way). It is only if you’re work is not at an assigned location, ie, inspector who travels to various locations, that you can charge for mileage, but only that which exceeds your daily travel to your office location.

I hope the senate democrats have the good sense to feed Lieberman BS to send to the republicans.

Thanks, Christy for digging into this thievery.

Visited w/ my bro last weekend – he thought Palin was really ann Coulter w/ a brown wig

AdAstra, Dr Dick is in Missoula. How far is that from you?

Why, yes, it is isn’t it!

My dad fought in the Pacific during WWII, glad he missed this….

Does anyone know about Obama’s money situation. Over at Hullabaloo, Tristero is saying Obama needs money now! Almost sounds like desparation.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office…

Ok, 19 months, 22 working days/month, 418 working days total. 312 billed TDY or about 75%.

The IRS has some rules about this and I believe they’d indicate that Wasilla was her home and if she did get an “allowance” it was taxable.

When R’s cannot speak to policy issues, and when they have accepted public financing (and therefore have less campaign funds)—they need to do some real MAGIC—misdirect attention from the one shiny object for a moment, and VOILA—a new shiny object appears.

Such is the situation for them every election, and their MAGIC worked in seven of the last ten presidential elections.

Except this is not a case of “lost a few receipts.” This appears to be a case of at least stretching the boundaries on what is permissible if not outright fraud.

Low info voters DO understand getting the tax dollars ripped off at a low level even if they don’t understand the high level rip-offs.

This type of fraud is something that can be explained easily to voters and questioned as to why she needed to rip off the taxpayers of Alaska for such sums. And $16k, while not a large sum for some, is siginifcant enough that it can get attention.

Did she charge mileage for the aerial wolf shooting?

I’ve not seen this mentioned thus far – Alaskans don’t pay taxes. No income tax, no state sales tax. Alaska derives its state income from royalty payments and investment income from prior year royalty payments.

Not to excuse the per diem collected for staying at home. Just saying you can’t say the Alaskan taxpayer was bilked, the Alaskan taxpayer is a myth.

Interesting that Palin considers getting per diem at home more important than the items she cut from the State budget to appear as if she was a “budget cutter”…y’know things like…

~ sidewalks to replace ancient ones in Anchorage that were dangerous for the disabled.
~ a New fire station in Anchorage to replace one that was seriously antiquated
~ funds to support a shelter for unmarried homeless teens with children.

Money for nice meals for the Palin gal who’s pregnant…homeless and poor…not so interested.

Obama doesn’t want to use the 527’s. Believes in a “new politics” which means on November 5th he might wake up and ask if anyone got the number of the train that just ran over him.

From the WaPo article:

The state finance director, Kim Garnero, said Alaska law exempts the governor’s office from elaborate travel regulations.

That allegation needs to be reviewed and clarified too, in order for the story to stick.

I work for the State of arizona. Just down at the county seat yesterday, 100 miles from my office, and I cannot submit for lunch. To submit for meals now I have to be staying overnight somewhere. This is the result of the IRS telling the State of Arizona that it had been wrong to allow us to claim reimbursement when we were not doing overnight travel.

So, if I travel to Phoenix and back in a day, I can claim the mileage but not the meals. Stupid but that is the way it works here. If I were the IRS I would be looking into her claims. It could be counted as unreported income and subject to taxes.

Put this up earlier but last time for today, I promise. My Palin file:

1. Troopergate/ currently ducking a deposition under oath
2. Replaced the guy she fired in troopergate with someone with a sexual harassment complaint who lasted 10 days
3. Todd’s Alaska Independence Party connections
4. Used a state site to promote mining interests over clean water.
5. Bridge to nowhere being for it before she was against it
6. For earmarks before she was against them
7. Pumping money into a bankrupt Alaska dairy and then selling it off to cronies
8. Firing employees as mayor over loyalty issues
9. Attempting to ban books from the library and fire the librarian
10. Involved in the 527 for Ted Stevens
11. Her daughter’s pregnancy
12. Her own still dubious pregnancy/flying 3000 miles after her water broke
13. Her expensive ($25 million) screwup with building a rec center in Wasilla as mayor on land the city did not have clear title to
14. Anti-choice
15. Anti-gay marriage
16. Pro-abstinence only (Tell that one to Bristol)
17. Pro-gun
18. Anti-environment (wolves and polar bears)
19. Pro-drilling
20. Global warming denier
21. Creationist/wants it taught in schools
22. Thought the Pledge of Allegiance dates to the founding of the country (it was penned in 1892 and “under God” was added in 1954)
23. Thinks the End Times will occur in her lifetime
24. Attends a church with an anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic pastor
25. Charged the state nearly $17,000 in per diem travel expenses when she was living at home
26. Implied she sold the state plane on ebay but it, in fact, failed to sell there, and later was sold elsewhere at a loss.

The problem with that is that Alaskans also get a share of the royalties, too — so if she’s taking more of the state’s money than she ought to take, that comes out of their individual royalty check pot, doesn’t it? I meant to word it that way but was in a rush this morning. Thanks muchly for the reminder on that!

The hits keep on coming. Read here for AIP’s connection to al Qaeda.

Alaska Statutes – Title 39 – Chapter 20 – Section 60

AS 39.20.060. Exclusion of Governor and Lieutenant Governor From Personnel Laws.

Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the governor and lieutenant governor are not considered employees of the state for the purpose of state personnel laws relating to hours of employment, annual leave, sick leave, overtime, compensatory time, and travel allowances. This section does not deprive the governor and lieutenant governor of the right to participate in the state retirement system or in state group insurance plans.

Perchance would teh “Per Diem Queen” in the image of “Welfare Queen” work?

From David Horsey: Bush & His Mini Me

I noticed that after McCain’s acceptance speech, she stayed out shaking hands after McCain and Cindy had already gone backstage.

Agreed. No plausable deniability.

Royalty checks are from the same pot… hard to say that the per diems are significant when you consider that royalty checks are upwards of $2K per Alaska resident – Palin’s expenses amount to under a quarter dollar per resident, which is lost in the noise.

I’m connected to Alaska – my son gets a royalty check, went to high school in Seward (his mother lives there)… I remember reading Alaskan newspapers while visiting after the dot com implosion that royalty checks might be decreasing or even suspended due to low return on royalty account investment immediately following the crash, and that Alaskan politicians were wary of this as “Permanent Fund Dividend” checks are a third rail in Alaskan politics.

Governor Palin’s per diems belie her claim to be a reformer and her taking on corrupt practices – she’s more of the same. They (Palin’s corrupt per diems) don’t make much difference to bottom line PFD checks Alaskans receive – that’s much more responsive to the price of oil, the quality of the state’s investments, etc.

Are Palin’s actual tax records public (yet)? It will be interesting to me to see how she claimed this income.

In other words, whether she bilked the Alaskan citizens (h/t wmd 1961 – she still is bilking the Alaskan citizens since, if I understand this correctly, when Alaska turns a surplus, Alaskan citizens get a cut of said surplus) or not, that $43,000 should be treated as ordinary income, which is subject to 15.4 percent Social Security and Medicaid Taxes (since I am sure it wasn’t deducted by the State)

If she is saying this is per diem reimbursement, I would not be surprised if the Palin family did not treat it was ordinary income, a lot of Americans don’t as the IRS rules, linked above are pretty complicated and technical. Regardless, travel to and from your home is certainly not a reimburseable expense per IRS Rules

In short, Hugh, add to your list, and I am hedging “she (may have) cheated on her federal taxes”

Thank you. Just linked to you from the beach house and at MPS.

That is the scariest aspect of it all.

I also noticed that shaking hands and dashing onto the stage as someone mentioned above. She just left McC standing behind. Maybe she’s just uppity.

I thought Cowboy Shrub was goin’ after the terr’sts and anyone who supports them? What happened?

Her salary puts her over the limit for FICA withholding. She would owe medicare taxes and regular income tax though.

What’s her salary?

23. Thinks the End Times will occur in her lifetime

If McCain gets elected, she’ll be one beat of his elderly heart from a dooms-day button.

THINK!

The linked Washington Post article puts her salary at $125,000. FICA cuts out at $102k this year.

Can’t bring a knife to a gun fight and win. Karl Rove will have him for breakfast. They cook up phomy stories and they get buy ib from it. The dems have kid gloves on and will get trounced.
Omama needs an afternoon training session with Buden and HRC.

Alaska is a silent partner of OPEC. Of course, after ripping us off OPEC doesn’t come begging for enormous gifts form the US Treasury as Alaska does. Alaska ranks number one year after year in the money it sucks from the US treasury. Alaska pays in roughly $5500 per resident each year and receives back approximately $14000 each year per resident.

Roughly 89% of the states unrestricted revenues come from taxes on oil. Interestingly, Palin pushed to increase the state’s share of the oil pie. It was, in effect, a windfall-profits tax. Apparently, she thinks a windfall-profits tax on oil is good for Alaska, but not for the country.

This article explains Palin’s Alaskonomics.
http://www.time.com/time/natio…..-2,00.html

True that, and I going beyond my realm somewhat as I don’t know how payroll taxes work for State governments, but if said State government is paying ordinary income, don’t they have a burden to pay the 7.5% FICA up to the $105K (or whatever it is these days) theshhold?

In other words, I think it is up to the State payroll department, as it is with any other regular old corporation, to ensure that the payroll taxes are paid properly.

I have found in my profession that where the IRS ends up nailing people more often than not is for underpayment of FICA taxes. As I said, I don’t know about how it works with State governments, but the burden is on the withholding agent to properly withhold said FICA taxes – if they are improperly paying “reimbursement” rather than income, the IRS will nail you if you are regular ol’ C Corporation (I’ve seen it happen) – I’d be interested in seeing how the State of Alaska did this.

Sure… it’s divided into FICA which is limited to the first $102K of wage/salary income and Medicare which is assessed on all wage/salary income.

I’ve not worked for government for a long time, but IIRC I did have FICA withholding when I worked as a university employee (but not as an academic appointee).

what WP article photo? Did they pull it because some asshat complained? Does anyone have a copy of the photo that Christy was referring to?

I did have FICA withholding when I worked as a university employee

This might be similar then. Is it your understanding that the burden is on the withholding agent, even if they are non-profit such as a university?

I remember that Johns Hopkins U. used to use ADP when I worked for them many years ago, so obviously they were concerned about withholding too.

You’re barking up the wrong tree there. Apparently she doesn’t believe in any maternity leave, according to her actions. IIRC next day back at work after Piper, two days after Trig.

the employer collects and remits the tax. So in my case Indiana University withheld my portion of FICA and Medicare, added the employer’s contribution and paid it to the IRS.

It’s been 13 years since I worked for IU.

Blue Texan a couple of flights upstairs

Thanks Christy.

I hope you stay on this. IMHO, it’s got legs.

I loved you asking the question, will she pay it back?

We rewound the TIVO last night to watch that again. I think McCain had better watch his back. And hire a taster. And not go near any open windows. And not bring anything electronic into the bathroom. And hope she’s not into practical jokes. And not swim alone.

Can we get some Dem Governors out here somewhere saying what kind of reimbursement they get or qualify for or, heaven forbid, decline? This is ridiculous!

Hello from the Flathead valley. Saw Biden in Kalispell this Sunday and was impressed with the depth and breadth of his knowledge, and his passion for the issues that really matter — healthcare, the economy, education, energy.

Christy, Palin’s spokesperson said that Palin’s children are entitled to per diems. How is this possible?