Spotlight on Juneau

April 8, 2002

Hello Fellow Taxpayers:

There are a lot of BIG spending bills in motion this week. Maybe the press was wrong about a budget deficit?

Below are some bills for you to shine the spotlight on this week. You will find hundreds of millions in spending, grants, and other give-a-ways! I guess no one told our Legislature yet about the huge budget deficit? To check the status of any bill listed visit the BASIS page and type bill number in the space provided.

We'll start off with an easy bill which has a HUGE potential bill attached and work our way down from there. With all these big spending bills for Railroads and Utilities, it reminds me of all those long cold winter nights spent playing Monopoly in my youth!

HB 423:  Allows Alaska Railroad Corp. to finance construction of the Natural Gas Pipeline
Sponsored by the House Rules Committee (Representatives KOTT, Kohring, McGuire, Morgan, Porter, Berkowitz, and Joule) by request of Governor Knowles. Our total cost: $60,000 and a $17,000,000,000 bond!!! This bill commits us to a HUGE bond debt without a vote of the people.  This one bill alone could just about wipe out the Permanent Fund if the pipeline fail.

SCR 28:  Fund a salmon industry task force

Sponsored by Senators AUSTERMAN, Lincoln, Taylor, Halford, Stevens, Leman, Ellis, Elton, Cowdery, Donley, Ward, Kelly, Therriault, Olson, Torgerson, plus Representatives Kerttula, and Wilson. Our total cost: $500,000. Once again our Legislature proposes using public (OUR) money to fund something for a special interest group!

SB 280:  Provides GRANTS to utilities
Sponsored by Senator THERRIAULT. Bill total cost: $552,900. Is this another half million dollars that could be better used for education, or to keep the parks open? I'm amazed at how many of our Legislators have not seen their own press releases lately!

SB 291:  Supplemental Appropriations (fast track)
This bill was introduced by the Senate Rules Committee: PHILLIPS, Cowdery, Halford, Therriault, and Ellis, by request of Governor Knowles. This bill if approved will allow Governor Knowles to OVERSPEND THE BUDGET by an additional $147,000,000!!! Sure wish I could do that with MY budget every year, and have someone else come along and pay the bills!

HB 175:  GRANTS or NO INTEREST LOANs to UTILITIES
Sponsored by Representatives LANCASTER, Harris, Green, Kookesh, and Mulder. Takes an additional $95,700,000 of OUR dollars from the CBR and GIVES it AWAY!!! I guess we really don't need that money to help keep our schools open, troopers on our roads, or health inspectors in the field?

HB 333:  Extends the Regulatory Commission of Alaska
Sponsored by the House Finance Committee: MULDER/WILLIAMS, Bunde, Foster, Harris, Hudson, Lancaster, Whitaker, Croft, Davies, and Moses. This bill will cost us $30,015,500 in fees and taxes over the next 5 years!!! How much regulation can we really afford these days? I see it on my utility bills every month and wonder why we need them!

HB 241:  Extending Alaska Railroad to Whitehorse CANADA
Sponsored by Representatives JAMES, Dyson, McGuire, Scalzi, Wilson, Foster, Whitaker, Fate, Morgan, Davies, Hayes, Harris, Green, and Senator Therriault. No cost estimate is available at press time, but it's safe to assume there will be a HUGE pile of tax dollars involved in this train set before Christmas morning finally arrives!

FYI, the sponsor's names have been attached, as we all need to remember who wanted these spending bills in the first place. I'm sure this information will come in handy later. Now that we've taken a good look at these spending bills it's time to tell the legislature what we really think.

There are plenty of suggestions and tools available on our Action page. My favorites are the Written Committee Testimony Form, POM, and Email. All of which are fast, easy, and FREE! We have even provided a new button which will allow you to send an email messages to the entire Legislature!  Please try out these new buttons now by telling the Legislature to "STOP SPENDING OUR MONEY"!!!

Until the next time remember to keep those POM's and Letters flooding into Juneau. We must keep up the pressure now, or pay a BIG bill later. The choice is clear, we must manage the legislature, as we can not AFFORD let them manage us!

Mike McBride

PS please forward this message to concerned family members, friends, neighbors, and business associates. Ask them to do the same. Everyone is welcome to join, and will automatically receive future issues of the "Spotlight on Juneau".

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