Tag: huffington post

CNN spreads false claims about Palin and cuts for teen moms and special ed

Last night, CNN’s Larry King Live featured a panel which discussed the impact of Sarah Palin on the 2008 presidential race. Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood repeated unchallenged the false contention that Sarah Palin cut funds for teen moms saying,

CECILE RICHARDS, PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: I think she has created interest. Two weeks ago, no one knew who Sarah Palin was and I think people now are beginning to look at what she actually stands for, what she did as governor. This is a woman who I think is far out of the mainstream. She line item vetoed programs for teenage moms in Alaska.

Richards went on to criticize Palin’s views on abortion. And then, Huffington Post’s Hillary Rosen responded to a question about Joe Biden’s ill-advised statements about supporting stem-cell research as a test of love for special needs kids (another whole issue in itself). Rosen repeated the falsehood that Palin cut funding for special needs kids.

BIDEN: I hear all of this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there’s joy to it as well — the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who was born with a birth defect. Guess what, folks, if you care about it, why don’t you support stem cell research?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Hillary, apparently they are complaining about that. What was wrong with that statement?
ROSEN: Well, you know, nothing, really. People’s families should be off limits, as long as they themselves make them off limits. And I think it’s pretty fair to say that Sarah Palin is campaigning as a wife and a mom. And you’re not attacking a child by saying — making a life related point. Here’s the issue. When she was governor, she cut special needs funding for families by 62 percent. She’s against stem cell research. She wants to — she’s against health care reform for everybody else, even though John McCain and Sarah Palin have health care paid for by the government.

Rosen needs to read Factcheck.org’s review on the special needs funding claim. They debunk this claim and note that she tripled per pupil funding.
Take away the false claims and what you have is a difference over abortion and stem-cell research. Palin’s critics are using distortions of her record to paint her as talking the pro-family talk but not walking the walk. The thinking seems to run this way: Obama may be pro-choice but he sure cares about families and social needs. McCain/Palin on the other hand are pro-life but don’t really care when it counts. The problem is there does not appear to be substantial factual basis for these recent claims.
(h/t: Karen B for the King show)

Sarah Palin did not slash funds for teen mothers

Contrary to a report from the Washington Post, Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, did not slash funding for a program for teen mothers.
The Washington Post’s Paul Kane reported late yesterday that “Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms.” The far-left Huffington Post repeated the story this morning. To support this contention Kane pointed out that “Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million.”
Covenant House Alaska is a faith-based, not-for-profit agency which provides a variety of services to troubled teens, including a home for teen moms. Although the work with adolescent mothers is only one component of their work, Kane focused on this aspect of their work due to the revelation that Governor Palin’s teen daughter is 5 months pregnant.
In Alaska, the governor is allowed to reduce spending allocations in the service of sound management and fiscal accountability. To prove his contention that Palin slashed funds for teen mothers, Kane produced the Alaska 2008 budget with Sarah Palin’s line by line adjustments. It is true that lawmakers allocated 5 million to Covenant House Alaska and that Mrs. Palin cut that allocation to 3.9 million dollars. However, what is misleading about the Post headline is that the allocation of 3.9 million is three times more than Covenant House Alaska received from government grants in 2007. According to records on the Covenant House Alaska website, the organization received just over 1.3 million dollars from grants in 2007 and nearly 1.2 million in 2006. Even with the reductions, Governor Palin signed a budget which provided three times more funds than the organization received in 2007.
Thus, the Post report is misleading on two counts. One, the funding in question went to an organization which engaged in many different services, including work with teen mothers. There was no funding exclusively earmarked for pregnant teens.
Two, the report leaves the impression that the Governor reduced existing funding levels, when in fact, the Palin-approved budget allowed a massive expansion of funding for this worthy faith-based organization. The organization’s total revenue for 2007 was just over 3 million dollars and so the 3.9 million approved by Palin and the Alaska legislature was a huge increase.
Viewed within the context of prior expenditures, it becomes clear that Governor Palin increased funding for social services which benefit kids, not “slashed” them as the Post reported. However, it also appears clear that she is not afraid to exercise some measure of fiscal discipline, even when the reduction targets those of similar ideology. Covenant House wants to expand housing capability and as a part of their marketing makes a clear religious appeal saying,

Just as Christ in His humanity is the visible sign of God’s presence among His people, so our efforts together in the covenant community are a visible sign that effects the presence of God, working through the Holy Spirit among ourselves and our kids.

I cannot figure out why this context was not provided. It is clear that Governor Palin did not cut funding. It cannot be a cut in funding when you get a raise, even if the raise was not as great as originally contemplated.
UPDATE: 9/4/08 – The Covenant House Alaska Executive Director states that she is glad for the support of Governor Palin.