We see in the news every day about how the Legislature is working on deep cutbacks for fire, police, road maintenance, schools and all the other state departments. However, there is no mention of cutbacks on the state giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the oil companies in tax credits. They have special exemptions from cutbacks.  What’s up with that?  How come they don’t have to have deep cutbacks like all of the state’s departments do?

Perhaps if the state did not give so many hundreds of millions of dollars to the oil companies in tax credits, then the state would not have to have such deep cutbacks in the state budget. I wonder why the state Legislature does not consider that option. If the Legislature gave cutbacks to the oil companies by trimming the tax credits they receive from the state, they will still make hundreds of millions of dollars per year in profit from the state’s oil.  The rich and powerful in the lower 48 who own the stocks of these oil companies are the ones who can most easily afford some cutbacks. They can afford these cutbacks a lot easier than, say, Alaska’s schools. How come Alaska’s schools can’t have exemptions from the state’s cutbacks like the oil companies get?  Shouldn’t Alaska’s schools get the same deal as the stockholders of the oil companies get from the state and be fully funded?

John Suter

Chugiak