One of the sensible things the Legislature should do this year is enact SB 114, which would close the Hilcorp loophole and reduce state oil tax credits by $3 a barrel, tying the credits to capital investment. This would be a good step toward a balanced fiscal plan.
Two years ago, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he would support a reduction in tax credits and closing the Hilcorp loophole if the Legislature sent him a bill with those changes.
Read MoreDunleavy has a credibility problem when he talks about a fiscal plan because he claimed for the last four-and-a-half years that all we needed were three constitutional amendments to settle the dividend formula, cap state spending and require that any tax increases be approved by voters and the Legislature.
In 2018 and 2022 he pledged there was no need for any new taxes and that we could have giant dividends and no real cuts in services, though it was clear to any competent analyst that he was wrong.
Read MoreThere is no chance that the House Education Republican Wrecking Crew will have its way requiring written parental approval for children to learn or do anything in the public schools.
But just because the wrecking crew—Jamie Allard, Mike Prax, Tom McKay and Justin Ruffridge—have fallen flat with rules that will never become law, their handiwork should not pass without public review.
Read MoreWe’re supposed to take it on faith from Kenai Rep. Ben Carpenter, the acolyte who put former temporary budget director Donna Arduin back on the state payroll, that cutting the Alaska corporate income tax to the lowest in the nation will lead to great gains in productivity and jobs.
We are supposed to believe that if Alaska cuts taxes on Wal-Mart and Kroger and AT&T, it won’t be long before food and phones will be cheaper and more people will be employed in Alaska.
Read MoreJoey Crum, appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to the University of Alaska Board of Regents, told legislators his business was not “subsidized” by the state.
But he did not make it clear that his business is a state contractor that has collected about $2.5 million in state money over the last four years.
Read MoreThe obvious case against legislative confirmation for Bethany Marcum on the University of Alaska Board of Regents got even stronger Friday with a ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court reinforcing the conclusion that she played a key role in unconstitutional gerrymandering while serving on the Alaska Redistricting Board.
Read MoreFour months ago Dunleavy said that carbon sequestration would solve our financial problems and that there was no need to talk about taxes. Or gore any oxen.
“The reason we landed on this is it doesn’t gore any ox,” Dunleavy said at a December press conference, a miracle substitute for the tired talk about taxes. He claimed the state could start collecting money within months.
Read MoreWhile the imaginary Alaska Office of Food Security continues in stealth mode, the recommendations of the emergency food security task force have failed to draw any public notice from Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
The Alaska Office of Food Security, which Dunleavy claimed to have created last fall, led by his campaign PR man, does not have a website on which to post the findings of the food security task force. The task force finished its work in early March.
Read MoreThe Alaska Permanent Fund board of directors made a reasonable call Wednesday in putting a cap on in-state investments at $200 million, the amount they have already committed to about 20 investments, some of them with tenuous ties to the Alaska economy.
The potential for political corruption and conflicts of interest are two of the biggest problems with this program. Those problems remain even with the fund now saying it won’t add to the pot of money aimed at promoting Alaska projects.
Read MoreSullivan has introduced a Senate resolution that says the “Vietnam war was an extremely divisive issue back home in the United States, as a result of biased and shameful attacks from the media, academia, politicians and many others.”
What’s really shameful is that Sullivan is unaware of one of the most important lessons of that disastrous chapter in our history.
Read MoreThe bellicose claims of Sen. Dan Sullivan about the future of Taiwan must be treated with skepticism because he speaks in an oversimplified manner that overlooks a complicating factor—the danger of a World War. According to Sullivan, if China attacks Taiwan, the U.S. should promise to repel China.
Read MoreGov. Mike Dunleavy said it would be a “knee-jerk reaction” to subsidize child care providers as some legislators are proposing to keep more providers in business and make the service more affordable for families struggling to care for their kids while working outside the home.
Instead of acting, Dunleavy chose his preferred reflexive behavior—he created a task force to study how to improve child care and pay people more to care for children.
Read MoreIt’s not clear what the governor’s Office of Food Security has done since last September. It is an exaggeration to call whatever it is an “office.” It exists on paper, using “existing personnel and monetary resources,” Dunleavy’s order said.
The office has no phone number, website, email address, physical address or office that I can find. There is no Office of Food Security listed in the state list of offices. There is no contact information for the ghost office.
Read MoreThe state House, which is tied up in budget knots as I write this Wednesday, is struggling to approve a budget with a deficit of a half-billion dollars or more.
Three of the provisions in SB 114, the oil tax bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Wielechowski, would cover most or all of that shortfall, anywhere from $400 million to $600 million. These ideas are not getting enough attention.
Read MoreThe Ted Stevens Foundation and UAA Chancellor Sean Parnell signed an agreement under which the Stevens family and the foundation will be able to continue to sanitize the papers of Ted Stevens, a massive collection of thousands of boxes that is to be donated to UAA.
Read MoreSen. Dan Sullivan, who never criticizes Donald Trump, hasn’t read the Trump indictment, but claims the unseen document “has moved our country into banana republic territory.”
It’s startling to see Sullivan sound off from a position of ignorance when he spent the entire Trump administration perfecting the art of pretending he couldn’t comment because he had not read about whatever Trump was up to at the moment.
Read MoreIn the decade since its adoption by the Legislature, one of the enduring mysteries of the Alaska oil tax system known as SB 21 is that no one ever explained where the $8-per-barrel tax credit plan came from or justified the choice of that number.
On the afternoon of March 29, 2013, the sliding scale appeared as if by magic in a House Resources Committee bill, replacing the $5 per barrel credit that had been in the Senate version.
Read MoreThe Dunleavy administration has in the past declared its support for two of the key provisions in the oil tax bill introduced by Anchorage Sen. Bill Wielechowski.
Not once, but twice.
Holding Dunleavy to this pledge should simplify the politics of the matter somewhat for the modest changes offered by Wielechowski.
Read MoreAn industry group called “Alaska Resource Education,” has long been creating materials for Alaska schools to promote the virtues of oil and gas, mining and forestry development.
The materials on its website have value, but the organization doesn’t always reveal that there are valid opinions among Alaskans other than those dear to the hearts of the Resource Development Council and Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Read MoreThe vast 4,700-box collection of Stevens papers should have remained in Fairbanks at the largest and finest research library in the state, but the heirs of Stevens decided to move the papers to Anchorage in 2015 for reasons they never explained.
If a first-rate biography of Stevens is ever to be written, the author will have to rely on this vast collection and have full access to tell the man’s story—his triumphs as well as his failures.
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