A slap in the face

The Legislature’s Operating Budget is a pork barrel of spending that will sustain the bloated bureaucracy of the state. With this budget, the Legislature chose to ignore the common Alaskan and to ensure that government employees are taken care of. They themselves did not do badly, they took their full $313 per day per diem along with their statutory pay for this session.

Meanwhile, the private sector employee is laid off and goes unpaid. Yes, unemployment benefits have been extended, but those are hardly a full paycheck and will take weeks to receive, if federal money is received in a timely manner to allow a blanket application of that system to this emergency.

Yet, the state owes Alaskan’s not less than 4 half-PFDs and this year’s statutory PFD.

Were there not an ongoing indefinite state of emergency world-wide, much less just the U.S. and Alaska, the Legislature’s affront to those they serve would be anger, but after much grumbling would be left to the coming election to resolve. Unfortunately, like many of those same legislators who voted for SB91, many will not have challengers for the Primary. That is something that in this case, needs to change, the affront is simply too grave and too great to be ignored.

A lot of people are going to be hurting financially, and some already are.

To give the Legislature the benefit of the doubt, maybe they decided to give the situation a little time and see how much further past April 12th this emergency might extend? After all, they did vote to give us a full statutory PFD, right? No. They did not, they cut it to $1,000. They could not even meet the statutory requirements for the PFD.

Therefore, one must conclude, that they gave no thought to a special session to extend further benefits to the plebes in need.

Government workers and the Legislature have to be paid!

$4.5 billion. There are about 730,000 Alaskans. That is a budget amounting to $6,164 per Alaskan. If only that went to each Alaskan in this time of uncertainty, but we will never see that money, and unless one works for the state or receives benefits from the state, that money does not buy the common Alaskan food or go to pay bills.

Maybe, they thought we did not deserve having what’s owed of our PFDs paid out, because other Americans don’t have a PFD.

Their choice of where they wish to live. More importantly, though, they live in an America with roads, with infrastructure, with communications, with food that doesn’t have to be shipped in by the boat load or trucked through Canada, food that can be replenished with ease.

Here, we have 3 days of food on the store shelves.

Without replenishment on a scheduled basis, the moose and caribou would become very scarce very quickly, along with the neighbor’s goats, chickens, cows, and whatever else might be edible, including the neighbor, if things went too long.

Outsiders can drive anywhere in the CONUS, but Alaskans? No. Congress has impeded our ability to develop as would any other state. Hence, our high cost of living.

I advocated multiple payments to provide relief to those out of work and to repay those portions of the PFDs as yet unpaid and to include this year’s PFD in those payments.

At $1,000 per Alaskan, that would have given a family of four $4,000 per month over a period of several months, reducing the impact of this emergency, and, as importantly, providing a much needed stimulus to Alaska businesses over a period of time.

If started in May, this would have extended through the summer. But, no. Can’t do that, might benefit the plebes.

Multiple payments were part of the governor’s rejected COVID-19 Plan, and advocated by former Governor Sean Parnell and Former Senator Mark Begich, and Senator Mia Costello.

Who voted to stand for Alaskans and oppose this bloated budget? Sen. Mike Shower, Sen. Donny Olson, Sen. Scott Kawasaki, Sen. Bill Wielechowski; Rep. Ben Carpenter, Rep. David Eastman, Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, Rep. Laddie Shaw, and Rep. Sara Vance.

Surprisingly enough, House GOP Minority Leader Rep. Lance Pruitt and Minority Whip DeLena Johnson, Rep. Cathy Tilton, and Senator David Wilson voted in favor of this cold-shouldered affront to the people of Alaska.

It should be noted that Senators Lora Reinbold and Shelley Hughes and Rep. George Rauscher were excused from the vote for whatever reason.

Now, we will see if Gov. Mike Dunleavy will call a special session on the road system.

Otherwise, if allowed to stand, the damage from this emergency to Alaska’s economy and to individual Alaskans will be unpardonable.

Larry Wood is a 65-year resident of Alaska and lives on Lazy Mountain.