The bill to reduce oil tax credits from a maximum of $8 per barrel to $5 per barrel is one step toward erasing the state deficit and providing the money needed to adequately fund public education.
The change will not mean a drastic cut in the profitability of the North Slope oil companies, according to research the Dunleavy revenue department did in 2021 before proposing this as an option.
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It has long been obvious that the Dunleavy administration does not have a coherent agriculture policy, going back to his 2019 vetoes and the layoffs of 20 employees.
It’s also obvious that the Legislature should reject the Dunleavy executive order creating a new ag department until there is a plan for something other than an nearly empty shell.
Dunleavy has not produced a coherent plan to do anything or pay for anything that needs to be done. All we have is a bumper crop of weasel words.
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski is following tradition in Alaska, using a method that allows some openness in the process. We know the names of the people who have applied to be federal judges.
Unhappy with this approach, Sen. Dan Sullivan is using a secret process in which the names of applicants are known only to former Gov. Sean Parnell, former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman and the seven other people chosen by Sullivan to screen applications.
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“It’s time for America to become the first #BITCOIN superpower,” Nicholas the Third wrote on X. “I am working on something Big with Sen Lummis,” he said, referring to Wyoming Republican cyrpto promoter Cynthia Lummis.
Lummis, who posts pictures of herself with laser eyes, claims to have a plan to “supercharge the U.S. dollar and pay down the national debt by establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve.”
The Bitcoin Policy Institute claimed Begich will make “an historic announcement at Bitcoin for America,” an online gabfest with Lummis as the honorary co-host. A cyrpto promotion site claimed Begich’s “statement has sent ripples across the cryptocurrency market.”
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Now that GOP owner Elon Musk has wiped out federal funding for Sullivan’s organization as part of the attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development and other entities, Sullivan has offered only a timid defense for its work.
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"This is unacceptable, and we're going to ensure that the Americans understand how pissed off we are, how unified we are, how committed we are to working as a country to stand up for each other," the Canadian Press quoted B.C. Premier David Eby as saying. "And I say we don't let up until the president takes the threat off the table."
Tolls on Alaska-bound commercial truck traffic may be coming soon.
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The depth of the Trump deception in his speech didn’t stop Alaska’s Trump-loving leaders—Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Sen. Dan Sullivan—from claiming that Trump mentioning the gas pipeline means the pipeline is as good as built.
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s response to the White House debacle is a model of what Sen. Dan Sullivan and other Republicans should be saying about Trump, but aren’t.
She said, “I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world.”
Sullivan’s silence makes his position clear. He is right there with the Alaska Republican Party in agreeing with anything Trump says.
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This is the weakest argument ever made to justify the expansion of government by creating a new state ag department: “Look at the bottom of our state seal and you’ll see a farmer,” says Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
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While Sen. Lisa Murkowski recognizes the real danger created by Trump chaos, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich the Third are blindly cheering every dumb and reckless move by the Musk/Trump regime as brilliant and inspired.
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The oil industry has already cued its publicity people to recite text from the Fear and Loathing Anti-Tax Playbook handed down by oil company employees since the discovery of Prudhoe Bay: Any tax increase, no matter how small, will kill investment and ruin the industry, the Fear and Loathing playbook says.
These bills will not kill investment, though there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, along with the fear and loathing.
Read MoreThe challenge of finding ways to pay for an increase in education funding is not the impossible dream that Republicans in Juneau claim.
Compromises to establish a reasonable dividend and raise taxes would put the state on a stable footing, ending the era when a governor can introduce a budget with a $1.5 billion deficit and abandon his responsibilities.
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Republican legislators are hiding behind the Dunleavy Knows Best fraud, refusing to admit that the real reform Alaska needs is to decrease class sizes. The only way to decrease class sizes is to hire and retain qualified teachers. That requires more funding from the Legislature and governor.
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Anyone who issues a press release saying a Bible parable offers a valuable lesson for government is not separating the spiritual from the secular, but combining the two.
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‘The Bible’s parable of the talents offers a valuable lesson for government, as it does for spiritual life. The good and faithful servant is the one who takes his employer’s money and increases it, while the unfaithful one simply buries it in the ground. When it comes to America’s abundant natural wealth, we face a similar choice,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a press release printed by the Wall Street Journal.
The state sermon does not say anything about saving for the next generation or the generation after that. Or that the good and faithful servant could be a foreign mining company hoping to make a killing from public resources.
The reverend governor also didn’t mention the long-term value of leaving wealth in the ground that belongs not just to those alive now, but to all future Americans.
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Sen. Dan Sullivan is running for reelection in 2026. Holding him accountable means that his statements and actions, especially those in which he reverses his so-called positions to avoid offending Musk and Trump, need to be monitored and understood.
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President Trump wants to take over the U.S. Postal Service and fire the bipartisan postal review board, the Washington Post reported Thursday night.
Alaska has more to lose than anywhere else in the country if this happens because the bypass mail subsidy program, a central element in Alaska commerce, would certainly be at risk of elimination once again.
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Rep. Nick Begich the Third doesn’t get it. The DOGE boys are not under attack because some of them are young.
This is not about the age. It’s about incompetence and lies. Nick the Third has become a regular conduit for those lies.
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Sen. Dan Sullivan took a strong stand this week to support the U.S. troops who fought and died on Iwo Jima. No one in Congress will oppose the resolution he co-sponsored with about 20 other senators.
Trump is using Putin talking points. He has abandoned Ukraine.
Sullivan has either flipped his position to side with Musk/Trump or he is afraid to cross his leaders about the betrayal of Ukraine.
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Rep. Nick Begich the Third, who claims to be a technology whiz, is mechanically repeating the lies of co-president Elon Musk.
One of the latest is Begich promoting the Musk lie that millions of people over 100 are collecting Social Security.
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