This is part 2 of Governor Palin's interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, but as part of a profile done on the '20/20' news program. Read the full transcript.
GIBSON: I -- I saw you quoted somewhere as speaking rather admiringly of -- of Mrs. Clinton, Senator Clinton, during the primary campaign. Do you think Obama should have picked her?
PALIN: I think he’s regretting not picking her now. I do. What determination and grit and even grace through some tough shots that were fired her way. She -- she handled those well.
[...]Governor John McCain and you are now talking about the GOP as a party of change. We’ve got a very sick economy. Tell me the three principle things you would do to change the Bush economic policies.
PALIN: And you’re right. Our economy is weak right now, and we have got to strengthen it. And government can play an appropriate role in helping to strengthen the economy.
We need to put government back on the side of the people and make sure that it is not government solely looked at for all the solutions, for one.
Let me tell you what I did here in the city of Wasilla and then as governor of Alaska. What I did as a city council member then, and then as mayor, was come in, and we cut personal property taxes in Wasilla. We cut small business inventory taxes.
GIBSON: You raised the sales tax.
PALIN: No, well, we had a two percent sales tax. And when people came to local government and said, “We want a sports arena here,” I said, “That’s fine, and I want a sports arena also, but we’re going to have to pay for it.”
GIBSON: I didn’t want to get off into Wasilla, but you came into the city with a debt-free city and left it with considerable millions of dollars of debt, didn’t you?
PALIN: A $13 million sports arena that we bonded for, but, see, we put government on the side of the people by asking them if that’s what they wanted. It was a question on the ballot, and they got to vote yes or no. So that’s what we did.
We eliminated small business inventory taxes. I eliminated things like business license renewal fees on our small businesses. Those economic indicators of success on a local level should provide to America that worldview that I have of what we can do on a local level, and then a state level, where we just suspended our fuel tax in our state also.
Get taxes under control, but at the same time we’re cutting taxes, you got to reduce the growth of government.
GIBSON: Well, I want to come back to the question. I want to know, because you’ve advertised yourselves now as the party of change. I want to know what you would change in the Bush economic principles.
What you said to me at the beginning I don’t think anybody in the Bush administration would disagree with. What do you change in the Bush economic plans?
PALIN: We have got to make sure that we reform the oversight also of the agencies, including the quasi-government agencies like Freddie and Fannie, those things that have created an atmosphere here in America where people are fearful of losing their homes.
People are looking at job loss. People are looking at unaffordable health care for their families. We have got to reform the oversight of these agencies that have such control over Americans’ pocketbooks.
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