Tuesday, September 09, 2008

When smears go wrong

FactCheck.org: Sliming Palin

The very handy FactCheck website says there have been massive emailings spreading rumours about Sarah Palin. One which tries to make her appear particularly hypocritical says that she dramatically reduced the funding for "special needs" children in Alaska.

Funnily enough, the exact opposite is the case:
According to an April 2008 article in Education Week, Palin signed legislation in March 2008 that would increase public school funding considerably, including special needs funding. It would increase spending on what Alaska calls "intensive needs" students (students with high-cost special requirements) from $26,900 per student in 2008 to $73,840 per student in 2011. That almost triples the per-student spending in three fiscal years.
I suspect someone at Daily Kos will say she only did that because she knew her own baby had special needs. But as Factcheck points out:
According to Eddy Jeans at the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, funding for special needs and intensive needs students has increased every year since Palin entered office, from a total of $203 million in 2006 to a projected $276 million in 2009.
Try again Democrats. You probably just helped give her more good publicity.

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