Time to trim oil company tax credits

To the editor:

We see in the news every day about how the Alaska Legislature is working on deep cuts for fire, police, road maintenance, schools and all the other state departments. However, there is no mention of cuts to the hundreds of millions of dollars the state’s giving to the oil companies in tax credits.

They have special exemptions from cutbacks. What’s up with that? How come they don’t have to have deep cuts like all of the state’s departments do?

Perhaps if the state did not give so many hundreds of millions of dollars to the oil companies in tax credits, then the state would not have to have such deep cutbacks in the state budget.

I wonder why the state Legislature does not consider that option. If the Legislature trimmed oil industry tax credits, industry will still make hundreds of millions of dollars per year in profit from the state’s oil.

The rich and powerful in the Lower 48 who own the stocks of these oil companies are the ones who can most easily afford some cutbacks. They can afford these cuts a lot easier than, say, Alaska’s schools.

How come Alaska’s schools can’t have exemptions from state cuts like the oil companies get? Shouldn’t Alaska’s schools get the same deal that the stockholders of the oil companies get from the state and be fully funded?

John Suter

Chugiak