Close state board of massage therapists

To the editor,

In this time of explosive budget deficits in Alaska, why did our honorable state legislators open a new state “Board of Massage Therapists,” last year? I think, they caved to pressure from lobbyists representing special interests, like massage schools, American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), etc. The first thing this board did was to increase our state license fees from $100 to $610 per two years! We cannot afford that! That is over 600 percent increase at this time, when we are all struggling to break even! They, initially, agreed to finance this new regulatory board only from license fees. But, because the number of massage therapists in Alaska is small and dwindling quickly (due to layoffs of highly paid customers), you can be sure that they will be begging for state money this year and next. We never needed a state board of massage regulation, before, and we certainly do not need it now!

Please help reduce the size of our government by asking your legislators to reverse all the new regulations in House Bill 328, which last year opened this superfluous Board of Massage Therapists, for starters. Let’s identify and close all such needless and unproductive government boards of regulation, before we agree to pay one cent of new taxes, and before we agree to give away one cent of our PFD dividends!

Dan Russell, former licensed massage therapist

Willow