A Letter to the Legislature
The Alaska State Senate is about to reconvene on the matter of the governor’s oil tax giveaway. Earlier in the day a series of amendments from Democratic legislators was shot down by the Republican controlled body. As we prepare for a potential final vote in the Senate, a letter to the legislature was sent from former First Lady Bella Hammond, and a series of former legislators and political leaders in the state.
March 20, 2013
Dear Senate President Huggins, Speaker Chenault, and Members of the State Legislature,
We are writing with respect to Senate Bill 21 and proposed changes to oil taxes.
The legislature is contemplating tax changes which would forgo tens of billions of dollars of revenue. SB 21 would replace a progressive tax structure with a flat tax, while substantially changing which oil fields are eligible for tax credits. It would eliminate legislative language designed to promote industry competition. These are major policy changes, and would affect Alaska’s business climate and state budgets for decades.
For decisions of this magnitude, it is critical that you act based on complete information, including robust estimates of forgone revenue, projected budgetary impacts, and, if applicable, anticipated new oil production. Sweeping tax changes for the product that is responsible for 90% of State revenue must be considered with the utmost care.
It is imperative that any legislation on oil tax policy produce public benefits which correspond to and offset forgone revenue. If the public will lose revenue from oil produced on public lands, then the public and the legislature should have complete confidence that such tax cuts will produce correspondingly large increases in oil production. Anything less fails to meet the standard set out by Article VIII Section 2 of the Alaska Constitution, which mandates both that the legislature develop our resources and that the public derive “maximum benefit” from production.
Generations of Alaska leaders—Governor Egan, Governor Hammond, Governor Hickel, to name just a few—worked across party lines to ensure that the Owner State develops its resources for the maximum benefit of Alaskans. As written, SB 21is inconsistent with Owner State principles, but we remain confident that deliberate, judicious consideration of oil tax changes can increase production while maintaining fidelity to Alaska’s Constitution and the legacy of her greatest leaders.
Bella Hammond
Chancy Croft
Jay Kerttula
Katie Hurley
Sam Cotton
John Sund
Jim Whitaker
Mike Miller (Juneau)
Ethan Berkowitz
Harry Crawford
Eric Croft
David Gottstein
That soft but recognizable thud you hear is the sound of this letter falling on deaf ears.
An observation; Kudos to Bill W for his address to the Senate. It blows my mind how he hammered them with facts and they ignored everything and voted the way they did.
Since the redistricting which led to the replacement of Dems with Rs was set aside by the court, why cannot a case be made that the Election should be held over with the old districting in place, and any legislation enacted in the interim be set aside also?
The greedy Rs should be taught a lesson.
Then it would be time to clean up the conflict of interest requirements.
John Schroeder
John Schroeder
This is a huge lesson to all Alaskans, and a cautionary tale for the rest of us: VOTING MATTERS.
There’s a special place somewhere else besides Alaska where these people should go………
I agree with AKblue, just when one thinks our legislature can’t get any worse……….I would love to see the Redistricting Board get complete, reevaluate the districts, and then hopefully, shed light on some of the Gerry-mandering that has taken place here. There is some great coverage of this, and the politics of it, here: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/
For at least 15 years, there have been conservatives in the legislature warning that Alaska was going to run out of money very soon. We had an impending fiscal crisis, and we needed a fiscal plan immediately to deal with it. We had to cut spending so we wouldn’t be caught short when the income dropped.
Well, the income kept coming in. Oil prices went higher, and production didn’t drop as quickly as expected. We actually had huge surpluses. This didn’t keep legislators from continuing to warn us about the wolf at the door. They kept saying we needed to cut spending because Alaska would run out of money in just a year or two. Well, after more than a decade of saying we faced a crisis without it actually happening, the legislature decided to take matters into their own hands. They have slashed oil taxes so that Alaska will have less money. Now our fine legislators will finally be able to say “we told you so.” There now is a very good chance we will have a fiscal crisis. That it is a totally voluntary, self impossed crisis will be lost on many.
Self-imposed fiscal crisis is the new “brilliant strategy” of the Republican party. I remember when they used to claim to “cut the current operating budget” by substantially overfunding the supplemental budget.
ok.
Last night SB21 passed the State senate :
CSSB 21(FIN) am
Third Reading – Final Passage
YEAS: 11 NAYS: 9 EXCUSED: 0 ABSENT: 0
Yeas: Bishop, Coghill, Dunleavy, Dyson, Fairclough, Giessel,
Huggins, Kelly, McGuire, Meyer, Micciche
Nays: Egan, Ellis, French, Gardner, Hoffman, Olson, Stedman,
Stevens, Wielechows
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_jrn_page.asp?session=28&bill=SB21&jrn=0740&hse=S
Pffft!
oops. Sorry to Senator Bill… dropped some of his name
WielechowsKI voted No
And now that the party of greed has passed it first big challenge to give our wealth away will the next one be Pebble? I had read in a report from pebble page that they have calmed over 600 sq mi for mining and when these bottom feeders give it alway also it will change the face of Alaska for all time…shameful
Well, it’s like this, Parnell, Huggins, Meyer, Micicce, Fairclough, Kelley, Coghill, a Dyson or Stoltze and the other Koch-(adherents, anemone, barnacle-like parasites )-suckers regarding your limited to you view on the people of Alaska…..
We see you for who you are and for what you are attempting to do.
You will.
Be.
Hounded.
For the rest of your lives in Alaska.
And may the curse of your simplistic venality extend on down through the generations of your families.
May public spit be your pancake syrup when you dine in restaurants.
This is what we get when juvenile limited intellect achieves power via oil company-financed gerrymandering.
Oh, did I mention you are fanning flames you Never Evah! dreamed of?
Do carry on…..
We are waiting, mofos.
The disgust is palpable in case you have not noticed.
A big shout-out to Randy Reudrich too.
Every time we get neanderthal legislature we think it can’t get worse, but it does. This one beats them all, no matter if they are thinking long term (starve the government beast) or magical, pie-in-the-sky thinking (this will work, this will work….)
We need some experts who will come up with a model of what a city with starve-the-beast government would look like. I would bet none of the legislators would live there.
Remind me again, who voted these goons into office?
I know who voted these goons into office.
That guy in Wasilla with a $40,000 truck and a job working for a highway construction contractor, the one that says he does not need the ‘Gubmint’ to give him a job, he works for a living… The one with the big black gas-guzzling truck and the “Support our troops” sticker on the side, and the “keep your government off my ______ (insert anything you want here)” sticker on the bumper. The guy that constantly talks about the Constitution and the Bible but has never read either one. He gets his information from Fox news and from Rush Limbaugh and from his pastor at the Baptist Church.
That guy.
He feel as if America is about to slip away because he is being told that the economic problems in this country are not being caused by a few people moving thier money to offshore accounts and vacuuming wealth out of here faster than snow can pile up in Valdez in December. he is being told that the problem is the guy standing in line at the unemployment office, and that is easy to believe because that is visible and easy to hate. And he has no other answer, because it is a complicated situation and the guy with the truck just wants to pay for his truck and have a steak dinner and a beer on Friday night.
There is nobody on this side of the million-dollar income bracket to blame, and looking for the guy that elected these people only causes us to continue to blame each other.
I don’t know the answer. I just know we need a better way to live. Thanks for letting me vent.