Socialist Spudnuts

Socialist Spudnuts

by digby

Reader Brew writes in to give us some context to Palin’s “Spudnut” tale:

Palin’s quirky invocation of the “Spudnut Shop” here in Richland Washington as an example of American “can-doism” is far more ironic than you and most of your readers likely realize.

The fact is, the town of Richland was literally built by the federal government as a part of the Manhattan Project. All of the houses that surround the Spudnut shop were built by the Army. To this day, the only employer in Richland of any consequence is the Department of Energy and the contractors that work on DoE contracts at the Hanford site, just north of Richland. As a result, virtually all of the Spudnut shop’s customers are paid by tax dollars. Those that aren’t are retirees, drawing government pensions and social security.

Were it not for government spending, the Spudnut shop would be bankrupt in a week.

Funny. But since a good many of Sarah’s Tea Partiers proclaim that they want the government to keep its hands off their Medicare, I’m not sure they would get the irony.

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