Murkowski's 'ruthless' slashing hurts economy

Spectrum, by Hal Endelstad

Thank you Ms. Rita Hatch for the continued fight for our Longevity Bonus program. For the countless types of "mongers" following Murkowski's ruthless slashing of Alaska's economy, the eventual multi billions would be a 100 percent loss to Alaska's only 100 percent guaranteed renewable resource, our seniors, the Longevity checks that instantly feed back into Alaska's businesses on a 30-day basis. Every seasonal-job worker or those relying or relating to those receiving that direly-needed check for rent or house payments, for instance, will be faced with some harsh sledding when the snow begins to fly. Would it have been, or will it be too much of a chore to demand of our elected officials to govern our Alaska, our resources, the Alaskan populace in compliance to the state Constitution, to the best of their abilities, SO HELP ME GOD? For any thousands, the Longevity checks are a dire need to sustaining life and health and the farthest from being a "bonus" per se. In Alaska, the needy do not receive bonuses, the way things are shaping up of lately, our needy are treated as a form of vermin to be stomped out. Actions speak louder than words. Guess at this one, did Murkowski actually choose to discard the millions of dollars our senior citizens Longevity checks generate each month toward our economy in favor of building roads over mosquito infested, permafrost swamps and muskeg that can be 5 feet deep for dozens of miles? Are these plans of an on the spot, knowledgeable individual you would trust to get you out of a financial quagmire? Blindly cutting and slashing and taxing is neither knowledgeable nor a sign of having the mental stability to govern and maintain the complex, multi-cultural business-head that will be required to restabilize just a single month's loss to our economy, lengthening Alaska's unemployment lines, being ignorant of an obvious fact, zero economy, zero growth, if this is what Murkowski's ideas and capabilities are of governing the richest state in America amounts to, it will not be for very long. The slimy skids of unethical political family oriented self-interest greed has already began its self-destruct slither into the gutters of ill-gotten use of public office for personal gain, that so far, completely excludes Alaska's immediate economic need of recovery.

What is the need of tanking our North Slope crude oil to the Lower 48 to be processed (separated) to gasoline, diesel and tanked back to Alaska consumers at more that twice the price of having the crude refined here in our own home back yard? Whatever it is, is buried in the bureaucratic mystery of the many reasons why the U.S. tax victims are forced to pay for these fake energy shortages while Alaska's North Slope holds more that 200 years of natural gas, not to mention oil that may exceed all of Saudi Arabia, that our oil up there has hardly been tapped except for the fly-speck Prudhoe Bay field, that Gull Island, proven to be at least four times the size of Prudhoe Bay that was capped and secreted as noted in my past March letter, Frontiersman, "It's no crisis." The solution to Alaska's flat broke situation began in 1976 by the state and federal failure to allow the oil companies to construct the parallel gas line from Prudhoe to Valdez, as the Federal Pact promised. One other observation by Chaplain Williams, author of "The Energy Non Crisis," I base my letter efforts on, Mr. Williams states, "I watched the last flotilla that came to Prudhoe Bay in 1976, and I saw them bring in monstrous buildings and equipment." What he seen was huge equipment to be driven by huge turbines, such as huge jet engines, with huge separating tanks especially designed, and "coated inside and out for the separating of the crude oil and the natural gas as it came up from the wells," his exact words. This took place in 1976, a huge separating plant intended to accommodate and efficiently separate 200 years of natural gas, from which field of crude oil, as the expected production life of Prudhoe Bay was only 20 years, and the producing fields are running dry, is what we are being made to believe?

What is the stupidity of building a deep sea dock at point MacKenzie for shipping wood chips when there are thousands of miles of dead trees on the Kenai Peninsula, with a deep sea dock at Nikiski? The MacKenzie Point dock and Knik bridge will have no immediate impact on Alaska's economy. Producing our own energy needs, will.

Hal Engelstad is a Wasilla resident.