🚀 go-pugleaf

This is really too easy to see. I find myself wondering if it can be this
clear. Maybe I am just getting too old to do that grey area thing anymore.

The guys and gals that make their fortunes from state spending simply have
to be in support of current spending levels through PFD use. The present
level of spending is the result of all demand and no limit to the supply of
funding. An income or sales tax would bring many interested and hostile
taxpayers to the table when it came time to split up the pie. When people
pay sales or income tax, they get real jumpy when some scheme to dress up
every new building is going to cost them personally, or they are being asked
to feel the pain of a worker making twice what they earn.

All the state admin guys had to counter with when unions use to ask for the
moon was that ...uh...well...it is wrong. The money was there, the unions
knew it, and the voters didn't know or care, or both. They could negotiate
hard, and I am sure they did, but they could never argue with the zeal of an
employer on the ropes of financial termination. They could never look the
state employees in the eye and tell them to go ahead and strike, we cannot
ask our people to pay this bill....every state strike action has been short
and relatively meaningless.

When persuasive people, community leaders, argued for community support for
state spending, it was hard to see that the future would bring projects that
cost more to maintain than we are happy about paying these days, employee
bases that spent salaries 'needed' by local merchants who would wail at the
thought of any cessation in state largess, an actual mandate to spend a
percent of each and every qualifying construction project on art, or bike
trails, and programs that never would have been started under a normal tax
structure are 'vital'.

Schools cost big money, and always have. A week or so ago, a Compass author
argued that we have to continue with state spending at the current level in
order to save education in this state. I grew up here in a school system
funded by some federal impact money and taxes from the local property
owners. We got along all right, as I recall. The teacher's union might
disagree, but I think most teachers would agree. That was when Anchorage
students were a semester or a whole year ahead of their peers outside, not a
student body that was average and proud of it, being taught by some of the
highest paid teachers in this nation. It might be different in the bush, but
the need for state spending for education in Anchorage was the subject of
the article, and this is common among those with whom I discuss this, and
those advocating continued spending at a level supportable only through
dividend use. We won't miss what we don't get in the first place, I guess. I
have mused, in paranoid times, that that is exactly why there is a federal
withholding tax.

When citizens are taxpayers, when the folks who give the votes are the ones
that give up the money, then and only then will there be restraint and any
whiff of conservatism in state spending. 'It's oil money, what is the
problem?' was heard too often when asking votes for 'Projects 80' ideas.
Look around and see exactly where it has gotten us. We all have had our pet
agendas for spending here, and it went well for a while. Now, can you look
me in the eye and tell me you think I need to personally pay to maintain
current state spending levels? I beg you to see that we would never have
gotten to this level of dependency had we retained a small income tax, or
instituted a sales tax.

Bryan Porter said something to the effect that no more spending cuts can be
made without hurting someone. No kidding, sir. We are about to be asked to
tax ourselves to keep state workers, contractors, and all of us, really,
from being hurt by state spending cuts. Some pain will be hard to avoid
here, I just wish that it be shared, not borne by the taxpayers alone.

Bob Casler