Sarah Palin: Call It a 'Government Slim-down'

At a rally for New Jersey Senate candidate Steve Lonegan on Saturday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said in plain terms the hysteria behind the partial government shutdown is exaggerated. She said it would be more accurately descried as a “government slim-down.”

“I think it should be called the slim-down,” Palin said, noting that only 17% of the “bloated,” “burdensome,” and “out of control” government is closed during the “shutdown.” 

She also said that during the shutdown, though, an “upside down Washington, D.C. has revealed its priorities.” “Our government refused to provide for fallen soldiers’s family to go retrieve the bodies of their loved ones at Dover Air Force Base,” Palin said. “And yet, the President’s golf course at Andrews Air Force Base is still open.”

Palin highlighted the fact the Amber Alert website had shut down but First Lady Michelle Obama’s “really groovy ‘Let’s Move’ video” was up and running “because you can’t be chubby.” 

She went on knock the Obama administration for barricading the World War II memorials and using “our military as pawns” to distract Americans from his “fundamental transformation of America.” Cuts specificallytargeted to inflict maximum pain on average Americans are meant to break “your spirit,” Palin said.

“It is about trying to make you feel you feel hopeless and helpless,” Palin said.