At home with the Palins: 'struggling working-class Americans' worth $1.2m
The Palins' home on Lake Lucille, Wasilla. The Alaskan couple have three homes and a plane
By Leonard Doyle in Washington Friday, 3 October 2008
On the campaign trail, Sarah Palin has complained of struggling to pay the bills and this week described herself as "an everyday, working-class American" who knows how it feels when the stock market takes a hit.
But the Palin family income reached comfortably into six figures in her 2007 declaration, capitalising on valuable salmon fishing rights and a series of property deals. Her governor's salary brought in $125,000 (£71,000), while her husband Todd earned almost $100,000 from his part-time job at BP, combined with income from commercial fishing. The couple appeared to be worth at least $1.2m, including a $500,000 lakefront home, a Piper float-plane and two holiday getaways.
That probably does not seem like struggling to the average American family living on less than $50,000 a year and trying to pay off credit card debts of $9,840 (Mrs Palin has none).
The Alaska governor describes herself as a small-town pit bull, willing to stand up to special interests, but she has also been willing to benefit from her position of power.
An investigation into the Palin family finances by the Associated Press challenges the image of a workaday mother struggling to make ends meet. The findings were based on her 2007 declaration. A more up-to-date picture of her wealth comes today when she must file a new declaration to the Federal Election Commission.
The Palins' wealth puts them on a par with her vice-presidential rival Joe Biden and his wife Jill, well-off but nowhere near as wealthy as John and Cindy McCain with their billion-dollar fortune, or Barack and Michelle Obama.
Rather than just the family's bank balance, attention may focus on Mrs Palin's willingness to accept gifts from vested interests while she was mayor of Wasilla. She raved about an "awesome facial" in a thank-you note to a local spa she had helped. She thanked a welding supply shop for the "gorgeous flowers" they sent her, along with fresh salmon to take home.
As mayor, she cast the tie-breaking vote to get a tax exemption on aircraft as an owner of a plane. She also asked city planning officials to waive violations of the building code so that she could sell her house quickly. And when she built a house in 2002, she was allowed to build it closer to the lake than regulations allow.
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