Alaska – Here I Come …
By Denise Best | Related entries in Blogging, General Politics, In The NewsAn observation both sides of the political aisles should be able to agree upon – more discretion and sanity needs to prevail in federal allocation of program funding.
By now, most of you have undoubtably heard about funding that had been proposed for the infamous Alaskan “Bridge to Nowhere.”
This is just one of numerous examples that we don’t hear about and essentially boils down (and makes my blood boil) to misuse of funds. Of course, there’s a healthy amount of subjectivity regarding what’s deemed a useful destination for our collective tax dollars.
Last week, Alaska’s other senator, Lisa Murkowski, said it would be “offensive” not to spend your money on her bridge. When she first became a senator, I asked her if Republicans believed in smaller government. She was unusually candid: “We want smaller government. But, boy, I sure want more highways and more stuff, whatever the stuff is.”
I’ll say. Alaska’s pork projects spanned 67 pages. They get much more than other states. “Oh, you need to come up,” she said. “You would realize it’s not pork. It’s all necessity … People look at Alaska and say, ‘Well, gee, they’re getting all this money.’ But we still have communities that are not tied in to sewer and water. There are certain basic things that you’ve got to have.”
But my children shouldn’t have to pay for them. If people want to live in remote areas of Alaska, why can’t they pay for their own sewers and water, through state or local taxes, or better yet, through private businesses? Why should all Americans pay to run sewer lines through the vast, frozen spaces of Alaska? Because Alaska has no money?
Don’t believe it. Alaska has so much money, it has no state income tax or sales tax. Instead, it gives its citizens money from something called the Alaska Permanent Fund.
What? No state or sales tax?
Dang!
Heck, I’m packing up the truck, the dog, and heading out to ALASKA!
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2005 and is filed under Blogging, General Politics, In The News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:01 am
hmmmm….
It’s too bad Alaska doesn’t have some huge oil field that we could drill into in return for all our tax dollars.
October 27th, 2005 at 11:59 am
Unless you undersatand real cold and real dark for a real long time, I wouldn’t get impulsive. I grew up in New Hapshire and that ain’t nuttin’. There are homeless people that survive the winter in Alaska – they are politely called Inuit.
October 27th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Well in Nevada where I am there is no state income tax either, we do have sales tax.