I actually had high hopes for Rodney Dial’s candidacy, a prospective breath of fresh air into the stale, insipid policies of dullness and torpor that permeates local and state politics. Instead in classic Randian fashion he calls upon us to kill or to displace the poor because they so obviously are the fount of all of our fiscal problems, that if these mooches, leeches, and parasites were to disappear (in Randian terminology to “perish as they should’) all of our financial problems would be solved. He even gives us a long drawn out description of his own PTSD in this regard, all incurred as a state cop.

Rodney Dial is already a failed politician because he believes his own lies. Let’s just round all these folks up and toss them off the ferries in Bellingham with the warning never to return to Alaska. Then we will all live happily ever after.

Perhaps there are deadbeats wandering around the boonies of Alaska looking for their big break on TV, or end of the roaders just hiding out, who are receiving largesse from the state of Alaska. To the extent that state policy actually invites these nonproductive people into the state I have no doubt that policy should be reviewed, but to think for a moment that eradicating these people by death or displacement will solve this state’s financial problems is nuts.

Mr. R.K. Rice has the numbers down pretty well; a pittance of $87 million in from the oil companies with $1.4 billion paid out to these multi-national corporations for the privilege of stealing our oil. It is actually a rather simple exercise to calculate how much gross revenue was earned in 2016 from the extraction of what is supposed to be our oil. All of those numbers are readily accessible through public records. For 2016 production levels, despite a lower market price, were significantly higher in the Alaska fields than they were in 2015 and 2014, and gross revenues were just under $10 billion.

The oil companies hold in secret what their production costs are and then they publicly lie through their teeth about that. Your state government, owned as it is by the oil companies, conducts all oil business in secret with these crooks and then allows their public mouthpieces to bemoan and propagandize their lies about their economic suffering without any effort whatsoever by our state government to offset their lies with the truth.

The truth is obvious, albeit it has to be established by indirection. Were the production costs of the oil companies the $45 a barrel that they claim, why did they increase production here in Alaska, but nowhere else, when the price went down to $26 a barrel? To continue producing at that time were they honest about their production costs would cost them no less than $300 million a month, real money even for multi-national oil companies. They did not lose $300 million a month.

Net profits of the oil companies on Alaska production was no less than $5.5 billion and is probably closer to $7 billion. On this one-time treasure belonging to all the people of this state nothing of consequence is being collected and billions of dollars is going out the window to pay these multi-nationals for the privilege of getting filthy rich on our oil.

And Dan Ortiz votes for a state income tax to pay for education. Go to hell, Dan Ortiz. “Oilcan” Dan returns in full bloom to trash us all because he does not have the courage to call a crook a crook. Instead he is fully prepared to steal from all of us. Leave us in peace, “Oilcan” Dan. What is dumbest about this approach is the fact he leaves the door wide open for the oil company lackeys in the state senate to pretend to be the good guys objecting to a state income tax, when in fact they are the crooks who are shilling exclusively for their masters, the multi-national oil companies. He is not a bright politician.

“Oil Company” Walker and his kitchen cabinet of Duncan, Rogoff, et. al, are the biggest cruds in this state. Walker is nothing but a thief, a man who steals from the poorest among us in copious quantity to give to this bunch of rich cruds to whom he owes fealty. He does not give a hoot about any ordinary Alaskan. It is just his rich buddies that he is worried about.

It is not possible for any level of government in this state to function rationally without properly taxing our oil resources. It is absolutely impossible for any level of government in this state to function at all if $1.4 billion or more is being paid out annually to these crooks for the privilege of getting rich on our oil. Instead every politician in this state has become a dirtbag thief grubbing for the oil companies as they jack up user fees and taxes on everything because they don’t have the courage to do what is right; they don’t have the honor or integrity to serve the people of this state but instead at every level of government grub for a bunch of rotten multi-nationals who don’t even live in this country in most instances; and they don’t have the brains to get that the oil companies really are stealing us blind.

How many times does an Alaskan have to pay for a gallon of gas? Start counting the ways.

The numbers are imperative. In Southeast Alaska 26.1% of the population is over 60-years old. To the politicians that is an untapped source of taxes; they don’t apparently comprehend that is also an indication of a series of ghost towns to be in the next decade or two. The old are not being replaced.

Alaska is already considered the worst state in which to retire for multiple reasons, the first and obvious one being cost. For 20 years in Southeast there has been no growth, the mills are gone, and now the governments to continue their $100,000+ salaries are intent upon butchering the private sector to sustain themselves despite the fact the private sector cannot begin to keep up now with the salary increases of local government.

The latest economic forecasts call for 33,000 jobs lost in this state in the next three years. That means at least 100,000 people are going to have to find someplace else to live. Forecasts furthermore indicate there will be no economic growth in this state until at least 2026. What that means for any private sector business is there will be fewer and fewer available customers at precisely that moment in time when the state and local governments see fit to steal your wallet. So any private sector business is watching taxes and fees going sky high while all his customers are moving away. That’s called getting chewed up at both ends of the stick at the same time.

Deceive yourselves all you want to. Blame it on the poor. Blame it on the price of oil. Say it enough times to yourself and maybe you will actually believe it. But there is no government in this state at any level. Just a bunch of very dishonest idiots dancing around a Maypole.

Do what you are gonna do, and then we will vote accordingly. To heck with this.

David G Hanger
Ketchikan, Alaska

Received April 19, 2017 - Published April 19, 2017

Related Viewpoint:

Oil Revenue - Senate Budget By RK Rice

Town crier By Rodney Dial

 

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