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Spotlight on Juneau Hello Fellow Taxpayers: The regular session of the 22nd Legislature ends at midnight this Tuesday. The news lately has been dominated by the seasonal game show "Let's Make a Deal ". Remember, that's OUR money being loaded into armoured cars for the winning contestants down in Juneau! Oh by the way, once those "winners" have hauled our money away, there might not be enough left in the bank to pay for education, public health, and safety. Some in the legislature have demonstrated time and again that these essential government services are very low on their priority list. At the same time they will fall all over themselves to GIVE our money to private companies, special interest groups, and municipalities that are fully capable of funding their own projects. To make ends meet they would just love to send you a BILL by tapping your permanent fund dividend, and /or new taxes! The good news is, there are some legislators in Juneau being considerably more fiscally conservative than others. However, these fine people are under a tremendous amount of pressure right now from those wanting to take our money and run! Once the session is over a visit to the Watchdog page will quickly reveal how legislators finally voted on these tax and spend bills. We must support the "good guys" with our letters, press, contributions, and votes when the time comes. On a lighter note, our affiliate in Fairbanks liked the analogy "showdown at the OK corral, Alaska style" in the May 6th newsletter, and drew this cartoon for us.
On one side of this battle we have (in black) the fiscally liberal "tax and spend gang", on the other side (in white of course) are Alaska Voters. The final outcome of this battle will be decided in the fall! Please take a few minutes and send email messages, POM's, or make some phone calls to the legislature. They must hear from us all NOW, or else the "winners" WILL BE someone else!!! Here are a few bills to consider discussing:
HB 20 Raids the Permanent Fund You can check the status and committee hearing schedule for any bill by going to the BASIS page on the State of Alaska web site. Enter bill number (ie HB 498, SB 291, etc.) in the "Bill Root" window, and push "display bill root" button. Give us a call if you have any questions about operating this system. To contact your legislator regarding any of these bills, use the tools provided on our Action page. You can now send the same message to all legislators using a recently added feature listed under the Email section. Don't forget to also send a POM ! Legislators welcome your telephone calls, and most have a toll free number. If you have any questions about how to become involved, call the Alaska Voters Organization at (907) 776-8008 or send us an Email . 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 price later. The choice is clear, we must manage the legislature, as we can no longer AFFORD to 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 ". If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, send an email with QUIT written in the message box. Make sure the "reply to" address on your message is the one you want removed from our files.
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