When did the State of Alaska start issuing clean air and water? I can walk outside and take in as much as I like. Our representatives however, feel like it’s either pony up for more taxes and they take the PFD or I no longer can breathe clean air. They list the many government services that they expect I want government to provide and add on adjectives like: strong, reasonable, reliable, well maintained, affordable, well managed and fair.

Also included in this list of services is a PFD check. This is the check that they took half of this last year. They had to do it to “save it” of course. The State of Alaska is the payee of this yearly payout, but this money doesn’t belong to them. It’s handed over by the PFD corporation to be distributed by the state. For years politicians have stood up on TV and announced how much the yearly payout is and the optics of it appear as if the governor and the state are the benefactors. So Paul Seaton and friends are now within reach of what they’ve been drooling over for years. Politicians know to never let a crisis go to waste.

Taking money from poor people is a disgrace. Taking the PFD hurts the poor the most. Our representatives will take trips to Europe and India on our dime and then come back and demand a thousand dollars from a family who was going to buy tires for the car. They feel like the money is best spent propping up a bloated state that has wasted millions and millions over the years on fish plants, airlines, coal plants and studies of countless projects that thankfully never spawned. However, even with my high school education I can see that taking the PFD payout hurts EVERYONE. I will venture to say that this will force many more Alaskan’s onto welfare.

I find it blasphemous that Gov. Hammond was drug into this bulletin as if he would be supporting their schemes. From what I’ve read of Jay, I think he would be on the team suing the state currently.

Our politicians never put any of that money away for the day when oil would be declining. The PFD Corporation did. They invested wisely and didn’t eat the seed corn like our greedy politicians who were only interested in how much money they could get to spend in their districts.

So, to answer the question raised by our honorable Rep. Seaton and Foster. I want to live in an Alaska which lives within it’s means. I want to live in a state that doesn’t take money from the poor at a disproportionate rate to the rich.

And finally I want to live in a state that doesn’t think the answer to everything is “more government.”