Palin billed Alaska for sleeping in her own home

The "reformer" Governor Sarah Palin billed the people of Alaska for sleeping in her own home.

What a brave and fearless, fiscal reformer. It has now come out that even as Sarah Palin has sought to portray her self as a budget watching, coupon cutting, small town mom, she has regularly charged the state "per diem" for food expenses while eating at home as well as the travel expenses for the family, including the kid while traveling on state business.

Heck, why should they pay for anything when the state can foot the bill?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions.

And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife even though he has no official role in the government.

Sarah Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, has claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

This all might not sound so bad if she wasn't lying to the country about being a fiscal conservative, and a reformer. However Sarah Palin's lavish spending completely undercuts the moosehunter maverick myth being spun by the McCain campaign, and repeated in every speech (by the way, when is McCain's campaign going to give Palin a new speech? Her covention speech is getting rather tired).

This is exactly the kind of politics as usual that they claim to be running against.

So again, does anyone want to ask John McCain about his so called reformer, or about the "so called" vetting process that was done on Palin? Did he know about her per diem charges? Did he even care? What kind of a presidential candidate fails so badly in his first major decision?