A governor's resignation: $40,000
The feeling afterward: priceless
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's mid-term resignation is estimated to have cost the state's citizens at least $40,000. Among other expenses, it cost the state approximately $14,100 to swear in the current governor, Sean Parnell, on July 26, 2009, according to results secured by The Associated Press. The state spent another $3,328 to move Palin and her family out of the governor's mansion.
And, that doesn't even include the soft dollar costs of the special legislative session that was in part related to her early exit from Juneau. There's another $100,000 outstanding for that meeting, in which the legislature approved Palin's chosen replacement for Parnell as lieutenant governor and made moot her veto of federal stimulus funds that would be used for projects for efficient energy.
Of course, Palin objects to this analysis, calling it "incredibly misleading" (perhaps more mayhem from the elite liberal bloggers in New York?). The ceremony, she says, was tacked onto a previously scheduled governor's picnic -- and was organized by the lieutenant governor's office. This stance and the claim as to cost are not mutually exclusive, though. So, everybody could be right . . . which is always the outcome of a political fistfight, anyway.
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