Should Alaskans paying soaring fuel bills, especially Bush residents, receive state checks to help with their expenses?
One legislator said, in response to Gov. Sarah Palin's aid proposal, "I think the argument is going to come up that people live in rural Alaska by choice."
Well, people live in Fairbanks by choice -- some of the military excepted -- and folks along the Chena River are as unhappy as folks in McGrath.
Nevertheless, the lawmaker raises an interesting question. Should the state respond to needy citizens based on where they live -- and the assumption that they chose to live there?
No matter where we are born, where we grow up, sometime in our teens we're faced with a question of profound consequence: Do I go or do I stay? Do I leave my community for the larger world or do I remain close to home?
Inertia, the default choice, keeps many people home, but American history, from Plymouth Rock onward, has been written largely by those who go. American history as the story of westward expansion, American history as the story of immigration.
My grandparents passed through Ellis Island after escaping Ireland's poverty. They settled in New York City. Every one of their children left New York. I was the only one of their many grandchildren to live in the city by choice -- and I was born in Fairbanks.
Government social policy has rewarded both those who go and those who stay. Go west, young man, and receive 160 acres of free government land. Stay west, old man -- stay in Alaska, anyway -- and you get the senior citizen property tax rebate on your home.
Government has long assisted the victims of floods, forest fires, hurricanes and earthquakes no matter where they live. Nobody in Washington says, "You lived in New Orleans, which has flooded before and will flood again, by choice -- tough." Or "You shouldn't have been in Anchorage in March 1964: Geologists told you to expect The Big One." If enough people get into enough trouble, the government will show up to help.
Perhaps government should get tougher on people who make choices with expensive consequences.
Not likely when the Alaska treasury is bursting with petro dollars. Far easier to give every man, woman and child an energy rebate. This approach may be wasteful but it can be palmed off as democratic -- everybody gets some money. If they need it, fine. If they don't, that's fine too.
Michael Carey