Conference of Alaskans get bold … almost

Frontiersman editorial board

Is it possible Gov. Frank Murkowski has completely lost his touch? It seems every step he takes leaves something else unpleasant on his shoes. The latest misstep can be found in the results he got from the Conference of Alaskans in Fairbanks, but it could have been messier.

He sent the delegates to Fairbanks with fairly explicit directions -- take a look at the state's fiscal mess, and tell me whether or not you think we should raid the permanent fund to clean it up. That was pretty much it. He didn't actually ask them to think about solutions to the state's economic woes, per se, and he certainly didn't say anything about taxes. Surprise, surprise, it took those wacky delegates all of one day to start talking about income taxes, and during the second day, they started sounding like they meant it -- at least, 67 percent of them did.

They started saying things like, "Yeah, we probably need to dip into the permanent fund, but we don't want that to be the sole, or even the primary, source of increased revenue." They said things like, "We should use the permanent fund to help get out of the immediate crisis, but we should really look at income taxes for the long run."

The last time a bunch of Alaskans got together and 67 percent of them volunteered to pay taxes was … well, there wasn't a last time.

At that point, Murkowski must have been sitting with his head in his hands wondering what he'd done. He'd sent a bunch of people to Fairbanks, locked them in a room and then sent Cheryl Frasca up there to scare the dickens out of them. He did all that so they'd tell him to go ahead and use the permanent fund to get the state out of hot water. He wanted a bunch of Alaskans to sacrifice the permanent fund so he wouldn't have to implement taxes. Instead, it looked like they were going to do something much scarier than that. It was something like a watershed moment -- something like a cultural epiphany. It was … also kind of short-lived.

On the third day, the delegates began to backpedal like a couple that just discovered their paddle swan was headed for Niagara Falls. They looked back at their language and started plugging in amendments and amendments to the amendments to soften the resolution. It was a valiant effort that fizzled a bit in the end. Next time maybe the Conference of Alaskans should only meet for two days.