LETTER: Walker, state should keep their grubby fingers off your money

Well, here they come again, folks: our miss-elected politicos in Juneau, wanting to slip their plump, greasy, grubby fingers down into your pocket and take away your hard-earned income. And why? Oh, yes- it’s a FISCAL CRISIS! A crisis! A crisis? When our state has $61.3 Billion Dollars in the bank?

And what caused this so-called crisis? Well, oil prices slipped, so these political Fat Cats have just a little bit less or our money to play with. So now they’re after YOUR hard earned income- with an income tax!

Does it matter that our state is in a nasty recession- possibly the worst since 1986? Nope. Does it matter, to them, that the cost of living in Alaska is ridiculously high, even for the lucky few here who ARE still working? Did you know that it’s actually cheaper to live in Tokyo, in Japan, than in Anchorage at this point? No, no, none of this counts to ‘old Governor Johnny Walker the RED and his tax-and-spend crew- they WANT your money- your hard earned income. And they want it NOW!

But here is the truth: Alaska IS the richest state in the entire United States, thanks to our Permanent Fund. The state’s own PFD site online says that JUST between the end of June and Sept. 21st this year, the Permanent Fund earned $1,500,000,000- in interest alone! It’s risen from $59.8 Billion in June to $61.3 Billion now -that’s $1.5 Billion dollars earned- in LESS than three months! As the Permanent Fund earns money at this rate, it could easily earn $6 Billion dollars in interest alone- in just ONE year!

But oh, my- listen to these rich, greasy politicians cry and moan, ‘oh, how our state is in a fiscal crisis,’ because they had to scrape some to get an extra $2.5 Billion to cover their services last year? When the Permanent Fund is likely to earn $6 Billion Dollars in interest alone this year?

Yes, folks: they WANT your income- and they want it BAD! Bad enough to manufacture a ‘crisis’ to first justify seizing half our PFD’s- and now supposedly, to justify taxing away your hard-earned income too! And this with OVER $61.3 Billion in the bank, right now, they could tap into- just as easily as Walker took away half your PFD. Some crisis!

The solution to this so-called ‘fiscal crisis’ nonsense is very clear: leave the few remaining workers in Alaska alone, and use some of the interest earned by the Permanent Fund to cover the $2.5 B. deficit! WHY is this such a problem to these bloated, Fat Cat politicians?

Clearly the actual people of Alaska, suffering away through a recession, who mistakenly voted these people into office, no longer matter to the ‘Special Interest’ representatives down in Juneau. The final proof is shown by Gov. Walker’s ‘flat tax’ proposal- where he takes 1.5 % of EVERYONE’S earned income- with a $2,200 cutoff. The fact that this would have a HUGE impact on the poor, and a tiny impact on the rich, CLEARLY doesn’t matter to ‘old Johnny Walker the RED.’ Yes, the poor suffer, and the rich laugh- all the way to the bank. Gee, thanks Governor Walker! We see who YOU represent!

Sadly, this is typical of what we’ve come to expect from Governor Walker and his tax-and-spend Fat Cats in Juneau. Let’s just HOPE that sanity will prevail, and Walker’s latest attempt to grind ordinary Alaskan workers into the dirt FAILS- and falls hard, too- especially with the state having $61.3 Billion dollars in funds available to pay for its services!

— Tom Anderson

Anchorage