Palin in Pennsylvania: Promises balanced budget in 4 years -- you betcha!

What is Sarah Palin smoking? On the campaign trail in Johnstown, Pennsylvannia today, she promised that she and McCain would balance the budget by the end of their first term. In light of the more than $800 billion bailout package, the additional $300 billion McCain wants to give mortgage lenders and the $10 trillion national deficit, she should have been laughed off the stage.

Palin began her speech by dragging out some very tired rhetoric from her convention speech. She told the crowd that they should be weary of someone who lavishes praise on people when they're listening and accuses them of clinging to guns and religion when they're not listening. She added that we don't like someone who says one thing in Johnstown Pennslyvannia and another thing in San Francisco. Palin then switched to pandering mode telling the crowd that McCain will balance the budget by the end of his first term.

This isn't the first time they've thrown the balanced budget pledge on the wall to see if it would stick. Back in February, McCain pledged to balance the budget by 2013, the end of his first term. In April, he backed off the pledge saying at a news conference that we would have a balanced budget within eight years. At a campaign rally in July, McCain again pledged to balance the budget by the end of his first term. The next day, his top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin told Bloomberg that the senator “has always” pledged to balance the budget by the end of his second term.

Maybe the crowd should be weary of someone who tells them one thing about balancing the budget when they're listening and sends their spokesman out to say another thing to the media knowing they could easily poke holes in the empty promise.