Alaska is the biggest welfare state in the country

I wonder if all those Joe Sixpacks who are planning to vote for John McCain because their pappy didn't fight in World War II so they could vote for a nigra (sic) and because they get a hard-on from Sarah Palin's aging-prom-queen-as-dominatrix persona ever think, while they're screaming at Republican rallies about tax cuts for "lazy people on welfare" (a concept that's getting about as tired as Dr. Suresh's metamorphosis into Jeff Goldblum in The Fly on HEROES), about what the state run by their fantasy object.

Because the more we read about Alaska, the more we see that for all the railing against Washington pork, the more we see Alaska as the sparerib capital of the world. Because the amount of pork given to Sarah Palin's Queendom gets more astounding every day (or "ivry dee", as the Queen of Mean herself might say):

Just 0.7 miles long, Crow Creek Road isn't a road to nowhere. It runs straight to the Double Musky Inn, a Cajun bistro owned by a Bob Persons, a close friend of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.

It cost taxpayers $2.7 million to widen and pave that road, and Alaska had higher priorities. But an Associated Press examination of government e-mails and interviews with state transportation officials found that Stevens moved the project to the front of the line.

Persons, owner of the popular watering hole where the Republican senator frequently dines, testified as a defense witness this month in Washington, D.C., where Stevens is on trial for corruption.

"This is a classic pork barrel project," said David Williams, a vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. "It's like 'Hey, if you're my buddy, I'll just get you a few million dollars and make you a road to your restaurant.' "

Details of the Crow Creek deal emerged as Stevens awaits a verdict in his trial. He is charged with lying on Senate financial disclosure forms about gifts, including more than $250,000 in home improvements to his cabin, not far from the Double Musky.

Trial testimony indicated that Stevens granted Persons power of attorney to guide the home renovation. Among the many presents Stevens is charged with concealing is a nearly $2,700 massage chair from Persons. Stevens says the chair was a loan. But his explanation of why he kept it in his house for seven years led to one of the more awkward exchanges of his testimony.

Telephone messages left at Persons' home and the restaurant were not returned.

John McCain likes to trumpet how Palin "took on the establishment" in her own state to present her as a reformer. But given what we know about her willingness to trade a house for herself and her family for a sports complex contract while mayor of Wasilla, her hiring of cronies for government jobs, and of course her new designer wardrobe provided courtesy of Republican camapign donors, that her "reform" credentials are as bogus as her claims to be a frugal hockey mom. And while the road in the above article is associated with Ted Stevens, Palin was perfectly OK with sucking up to Stevens when it was in her interest to do so, serving as a director of Stevens' 527 group.

And as it turns out, Palin isn't above using a bit of Stevens' rather loose ethical code when it means goodies for herself either. It seems that "donating the clothes to charity" doesn't get Palin off the hook with the IRS. Jake Tapper:

I just got off the phone with a well-respected and well-known tax attorney who doesn't want to be identified.

I asked him earlier in the day whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can avoid paying taxes on the $150,000 worth of clothes the RNC bought her, as she and the RNC maintain. (They said the RNC now owns the clothes; she's just borrowing them.)

He said that, after consulting with a number of experts at his prominent firm, he thinks the RNC and Gov. Palin are wrong.

"It's probably not a 'gift,'" he said. "The issue is whether it counts as 'income.'"

Palin's claim that the pricey duds belong to the RNC and she's just "borrowing" them and will return them later, reminds him, he says, of some of the issues going on in the prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. (Some of the issues, he specified, not the allegations of criminality.)

"This is exactly the issue with the Stevens case," he said. "When you loan something to someone can you call it a 'loan' if, upon its return, it has no practical value?

"The consensus view is she would have to count the wardrobe as income at least in the amount of the fair value of the rental of the wardrobe," he said.

He added that the law is clear that uniforms -- "big brown suits with your name on them" -- don't qualify as income, but it would be hard to make the argument that fancy dress suits from Saks Fifth Avenue and Nieman Marcus are a uniform.