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Residents of Alaska, the state once governed by conservative firebrand Sarah Palin, will each receive $878 from the state’s Permanent Fund this year. The Permanent Fund was created in 1976 to collect and distribute revenues Alaska generates from publicly owned resources: sales of oil and natural gas, etc. In other words, it’s an example of the government holding a resource and distributing the proceeds from that resource to the entire population. It’s like — what’s a good example? — it’s like how some entire nations used to maintain ownership of businesses and then distribute goods and services from those businesses to the citizenry. There’s a name for that sort of government that escapes me.

The oil industry wasn’t as good to Alaska this year as in years past. The peak of the government’s munificence came in 2008, the same year that then-Gov. Sarah Palin ran for vice president while assailing Barack Obama’s imaginary predilection for redistributing wealth. In 2008, Alaskans got an extra $1,200 due to windfall oil proceeds. The $1,200 was proposed by Palin, shortly before she hit the campaign trail alongside people like Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher.

Last week, Palin was on Fox News. From Yahoo!:

Fox News contributor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is urging Mitt Romney to make his criticism of President Barack Obama “personal,” and agreed that he should begin using words such as “incompetent, dangerous, socialist” to describe the president.

There’s the word I was looking for earlier!

As a resident of Alaska, a red state, Palin (and every member of her family who was not incarcerated this year) will receive the $878 payout — more than enough for a round-trip flight from Anchorage to Fox News’ headquarters in New York City.