TAX POLICY IN THE LAND OF OZBy David G Hanger November 02, 2017 I realize that only you, the Christian ayatollahs and mullahs of Ketchikan, and your inordinate knowledge and profundity gleaned only in some instances from divinity or seminary school, are the true arbiters of speech, thought, association, and fact, on any subject under the sun, and that you and your spies will continue working in the dark to ensure no one regresses from your expected norm. You, O Great Ones, granted freedom of religion by a beneficent and magnanimous government have consigned to hell everyone who disagrees with you, generally in the singular and the particular, and that freedom of religion is for you and yours only. For everyone else damnation; as substitute for freedom of speech, thought, association, and more, intolerance of anything but your own narrow views. The arrogance of ignorance is a wonder to behold. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and otherwise shut it down. That seems to be the drift of tax policy in the Land of Oz. “Oilcan” Dan and “Oil Company” Walker have now been supplanted by Byron Mallott as number one amongst buffoons. How his corporation ever made a dime surprises me; that he lost so much more does not surprise me at all. Oh, weep for our 14 billions. Some great ideas afloat out there, most of which will make me a lot of money. (Please remember that I have been adamantly opposed to this state income tax BS from the beginning.) I have already concurred with Trevor Shaw that our lieutenant-governor is flat out of his tree, but Mikey’s nepotism is costing the Borough and the City a pretty penny, and there is a lot more of that kind of crap going on. If there was a bit less who is getting the deal because of who is sleeping with whom, who is married to or related to whom, who goes to the correct church, or who goes to the correct lodge or club, it would not surprise me if the savings were in the 15% to 30% of budget range. Such a review would be timely. Chop-chop. Anarchists like Laura Plenert and her cohorts of the ‘Coghill Abomination’, of course, just want to wipe out the government, then cannibalize it to make a fast buck. So hell yes, let’s shut down the ferry system and privatize it, a fantastic idea. Her great-great grandchildren will still be waiting in 2120 for that privatized ferry. While we are at it let’s not forget that roads and highways don’t make us any money either (except indirectly), so let’s stop financing them, too. There appears an over concern with schools and education in a country where 7% of the adult population believes chocolate milk comes from brown cows and 41% of the adult population believes the Egyptians, the dinosaurs, and the Pyramids co-existed. One has to question the point when our great masters clearly expect, indeed prefer, their flock be as ignorant as possible. Easier to manipulate. (I make my own chocolate milk, and the scientific and historical data studied by me convinces me that Reverend Ussher’s dates are just a tad off.) You want them dumb. Your kids come back from college with an education, and you resent them, and even more their knowledge. I think education extremely worthwhile, but I see little actual evidence that is shared by most of you. One of the big reasons, of course, for this state income tax push is to finance education while giving away our past, our present, and our future to the oil companies in the meantime. Which also addresses the first problem with the state income tax. It’s just about enough to pay two-thirds of what the oil companies are bilking the state treasury for annually. The money will not be used for education. Any state income tax I pay will be supplanted many times over by the extra money I make dealing with the nonsense, but the tax preparation is the most incidental aspect of this. THE MERE EXISTENCE OF THIS STATE INCOME TAX WILL INCREASE THE PROBABILITY OF IRS AUDIT OF ALASKAN INCOME TAX RETURNS BY A FACTOR OF 20 TO 25. This could conceivably result in more extra money going to the IRS than is collected by the State overall. How can this happen? That is not really the question. You just created a state bureaucracy looking for six months of work to do annually to justify their existence. So they will start auditing Alaska returns in bulk; what is known as ‘reciprocity’ does the rest. Everything done by the State will be turned over to the IRS, who will then collect in turn. Have fun, gang. Your lack of thought and of concept on this particular subject does not impress me at all. But you will make me a lot of extra money. Two bogus political schools have evolved out of all this nonsense, neither of which makes any practical sense ultimately, because both are based on false and very flawed assumptions. Dan Ortiz, being a former school teacher, and folks like Ghert Abbott, represent the school of thought that a state income tax is good for the sake of the children and of local governments. The foundation of this thesis remains the insanity that SB21 is sacrosanct and unchangeable, and thus we are obligated ad infinitum to enrich and to engorge people who don’t even live in this state by not only giving them all of our oil for free, but actually giving them more than $1 billion annually for the privilege of having them steal it from us. This is the foundation of the state income tax policy of “Oilcan” Dan Ortiz and “Oil Company” Walker, all of which enriches the Anchorage/Fairbanks corridor and oil moguls living elsewhere while impoverishing everyone else living in the state. That is not rational public policy. That is base corruption and a massive rip-off. Stealing from the poor and the ordinary in order to engorge the super-rich, and people who don’t even live in Alaska, is a fundamentally bizarre policy for any government to seek to impose on its people. That “Oilcan” Dan Ortiz persists in pushing this state income tax while continuing to refuse to deal directly with the oil and oil tax rip-off represents one of the most colossal failures I have seen in a politician. He is representing an idea, a concept, a bunch of hoakum and hooey pushed by Walker and Mallott; rather than representing the fundamental interests of his constituency. It is not in the interest of anyone in Ketchikan, or anywhere else in Southeast and elsewhere, to underwrite and otherwise finance the well-being of the Anchorage/Fairbanks corridor simply because they refuse to deal with the fundamental need to down-size. Where were they when we down-sized? Nowhere to be seen. Folks in Southeast pretty much put it back together on their own, and it is presumptuous of anyone to think we should be carrying their water when according to most economic reports Ketchikan remains the lowest-paying community of any size in the state. Waiting in the wings is Rodney Dial whose competence, ability, and experience are yet exceeded by his vanity, but who nonetheless may very well be your next state representative. (His research technique and intent is suspect.) While Rodney does not represent the other bogus school of thought that has emerged, i.e. cut and gut all government services, it will be easy enough for him to crawl into bed with these folks. Tax the central part of the state, tax the folks on POW, tax someone else, is as far as Rodney’s thinking has gone so far, and being Republican as well as unsympathetic to the poor, the weak, the dependent, et. al, it will be easy enough for Rodney to make common with the ‘Coghill Abomination.’ For not once has Rodney addressed the theft of Alaska’s oil via the machinations of SB21. This crap that the oil companies in this state have been losing money is the biggest of all lies and the greatest crime that has been committed in this state. The oil industry up north has changed to a series of legacy fields, and further exploration or development of new fields at this time is a fool’s errand, for the much more accessible Permian Basin and Marfa formations in west and in south Texas contain reserves exceeding those of Saudi Arabia. Anything new up here should be capped for future development because the price of oil is about to tank big time. The legacy fields of the North Slope remain profitable, and it is the corruption and the stupidity of a Republican-run state senate owned by the oil companies that is wrecking the financial well-being of this state. Anchorage and Fairbanks, etc. are going to clear out by a third in the next several years no matter what these idiots do because there is no other industry to replace what will go away. Too bad. Not your job or mine to pay for it. This circle-jerk of a state income tax or not, to cut to shreds or not, is a smokescreen of nonsensical drivel useful only to the thieves and their minions who are stealing our oil while you bicker over nothing of any real consequence at all. They steal billions upon billions while you wreck yourselves on a mirage. David G Hanger About: Editor's Note:
Received October 28, 2017 - Published November 02, 2017 Related Viewpoint:
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