Hey, Sarah Palin owes back taxes, and she didn't even get a cabinet appointment! What a rip-off. Good thing she can claim so many dependents, right?

Turns out that "per diem" she got for staying at her own damn house in Wasilla counts as "income"!

The governor's office wouldn't say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

"The amount of taxes owed is a private matter," Sharon Leighow, Palin's spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "If the governor collects future per diem, those documents would be a matter of public record."

Yes, it's a "private matter" because she's not gonna serve in Obama's cabinet.

Frankly a couple thousand bucks in back taxes is the least of Sarah Palin's problems. Her unwed teenage-mom daughter explained that abstinence is a fairy tale on national TV, the presidential campaign left her a nervous wreck with only a shred of her former entirely unjustified self-confidence, and people keep telling her to run for president in 2012.

But the biggest problem? Now she might have to "govern" her tiny little socialist oil state for real, 'cuz the price of oil is falling! So Alaska will run out of oil and money in about two years, just in time for Sarah to begin her awesome presidential campaign for real.