Since I don’t see much reporting about what is happening in Juneau, let me attempt to illuminate.

The muskrat coalition, let by Paul Seaton and Gabrielle LeDoux, is frittering away Alaska’s future. Currently, our annual budget is approximately $5.5 billion, and we are about $3.3 billion short in revenue. With no mind for the future, they are attempting to balance our over-bloated government, not by trimming the budget to match the current revenue, but rather through the wallets of every man, woman and child resident.

Alaska has several areas from which the government can confiscate wealth in order to bolster it’s revenue. Business/corporate tax, which gets passed on to the consumer. Spend down the CBR (constitutional budget reserve) which will be depleted in 2-3 years. Steal the Permanent Fund, which, while can continue to fund this over-bloated government for quite a few years, robs the dividend from the current generations and destroys it for our future generations. Income tax. In 2016, we lost 9,100 jobs, meanwhile the projection for 2017 is 12,000. And it should go without saying that an income tax hurts the working folks and their families, and by extension businesses that depend on us having a certain level of disposable income.

Meanwhile Walker and company continue to throw away money on the gas pipeline boondoggle, over a billion and change and still going. He has hired an individual in Texas for $550,000 per year, to help “market” our non-existent gas line that will never exist. Think of it this way: he stole $1,000 from 550 Alaskans in order to hire this “marketer.” For the uninformed, your pfd was reduced by $1,000 last year so Walker could try to force our legislators to see things his way; it was not allocated so it could not have been used pay down our budget shortfall.

Finally, increasing oil production is our answer; there is approximately 650,000 barrels waiting to be added to the pipeline daily, but our muskrat coalition hates oil companies. Good grief, now that is a good example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.