Anywhere from forty-two to one hundred sixty-seven.
That's how many rape kits Sarah Palin could have funded just with the money she spent to redecorate her office without permission from the city council.
The Frontiersman, 5/23/00:While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.
According to the City of Wasilla, there were 84 sexual assaults in Wasilla between 1996 and 2002, Palin's years as mayor. So assuming that every sexual assault was a rape (which is unlikely), the city could have paid between $300-$600 per rape kit, and had one for every victim, just with the funds Palin used for office decoration.
But wait, there's more!
A $24,000 GMC Suburban bought in 1997 for Palin's exclusive use could have purchased between 20-80 more kits.
She could have bought 1,083-4,333 rape kits with the $1.3 million in taxpayer dollars Wasilla wasted just in litigating the hockey rink she insisted be built (not even counting the cost of the rink itself).
And we could always add in statistics from her gubernatorial administration, like the number of kits that could have been bought with the money she paid herself to sleep in her own home. Or to take her family on trips. Or the amount the state has to spend investigating her abuse of power.
But keeping it on her mayoral career, we're now looking at anywhere between 1,145 and 4,580 rape kits that the city could have paid for, just using the money that Sarah Palin squandered on personal pampering and unnecessary litigation for her pet project.
While most "reformers" are trying to make the government work better, she was too much of a maverick to go with that herd mentality.
What more could you want in a Vice-President?