"According to Kilkenny and others in Wasilla as well as Juneau,
Palin reduced progressive property taxes for businesses while mayor and increased a regressive sales tax which even hits necessities such as food. The tax cuts she promoted in her St. Paul speech actually
benefited large corporate property owners far more than they benefited residents. Indeed, Kilkenny insists that many Wasilla
home owners actually saw their
tax bill skyrocket to make
up for the
shortfall. Two other WasillianÂ’s with whom I spoke said property taxes on their modest, three bedroom homes rose during the Palin regime.
To an outsider,
it would seem hard to do, but an oil-rich town with zero debt on the day she was inaugurated mayor was left saddled with $22 million of debt by the time she moved away to become governor – especially since
nothing was spent on things such as improving the cityÂ’s infrastructure or building a much-needed sewage treatment plant. So what did Mayor Palin spend the taxpayerÂ’s money on, if not fixing streets and scrubbing sewage?
For starters,
she remodeled her office.
Several times over, as a matter of fact.
Then
Palin spent $1 million on an unnecessary, new park that no one other than the contractors and Palin seemed to want. Next,
Sarah doled out more than $15 million of taxpayer money for a sports complex that she shoved through even though the city did not own clear title to the land; now, seven years later, the matter is
still in litigation and
lawyer fees are said to be close to
at least half of the original estimated price of the facility."
If, by executive experience, we're still talkin'-about driving a small-town (in Alaska) $20M into debt.....yeah, he doesn't have that experience.
