Anchorage Daily News

Alaskans can handle gas tax

Why in the world would Gov. Parnell ask the Legislature to suspend the gasoline tax?

This tax is about as equitable a tax as you can find: The more wear and tear you put on our roads, the more you pay. What's wrong with that?

Our roads and schools are in tough shape and we cry to the feds for money to build bridges we don't particularly need and which we aren't prepared to maintain, anyway. Good Grief!

We've become a bunch of crybabies. Whatever happened to the "can-do Alaskan"? We must look like a bunch of spoiled 2-year-olds to the rest of the country. Jeepers!

-- Bill Barnes

Anchorage

Cap and trade is bad solution

Cap and trade is another idiotic government program that will thwart resource development, increase fuel costs and worsen our economic problems even more. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Utilities in Southcentral Alaska are already making contingency plans for gas shortages during a cold snap because of marginal supplies. Thanks to this whole "CO2 is going to doom the planet" hoax, the environmentalists are painting us into a corner of dwindling and ever more expensive electricity, natural gas and gasoline. By the time the severity of this contrived crisis is fully realized, it will be too late to turn around. Either these politicians are totally stupid, or they have another agenda for America.

-- John Kiehn

Anchorage

Thank oil for good roads

The paving and striping of the Glenn Highway has been a wonderfully managed project. Kudos to everyone involved.

Likewise, the Parks-Glenn interchange is an elegant solution to the design and environmental issues there. Driving atop those bridges is a breathtaking experience every time.

The Parks Highway up to, but not including, downtown Wasilla is just a complete pleasure to drive on. I remember a horrible crash at Hyer Road many years ago; the memory is gratefully fading.

Eagle River Loop Road is gorgeous. Granite did a superb job of managing traffic and the landscaping is delightful. I really appreciate the attention to detail.

The patch job on the P-W Highway is not so remarkable, but the Trunk Road connection to the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Bogard Road -- the future Palmer-Houston Parkway -- is long overdue and greatly needed.

Thank you, Conoco Phillips, BP, ENI, Exxon and Anadarko, for making it all possible. May you all find even richer pools of oil and prosper in this most wonderful place.

-- Stephen Stoll

Wasilla

Play time helps brains grow

Your editorial "High cost, high pay-off: New state preschools: DOE emphasizes doing it right" (Aug. 28) may make early childhood educators wonder if the trial preschools will become another pawn in the NCLB struggle. Will teachers be mandated to push the children?

Research shows children in preschool learn through play, not by listening to a rote lesson. Will the pressure be on teachers to have children perform academically? Will testing be the emphasis?

Pressures may make children feel like they are failures. Developmentally, children need programs that allow them to learn through play, gain social skills, practice negotiating skills within their group setting and gain a sense of self-efficacy: the belief that you can change your environment.

The competent early childhood educator knows how important the environment is and that children thrive with small groups and individual attention. Many hope that with the trial preschools we can get it right.

-- Miranda Mundell, director

St. Mary's Creative Playschool

Eagle River

Keeping citizens healthy provides stronger defense

At the onset of World War II, of all the men in the U.S. who wanted to serve or were drafted for military service, somewhere between 10 percent and 20 percent were not fit because they were malnourished. This so shocked the Congress that the free breakfast and lunch school program was enacted to provide nourishment to the lower-income families of the U.S.

The basic source of military manpower often comes from those least likely to be able to afford good health care and a healthy diet. Any society, bound together by whatever bond, is only as healthy as its most physically unfit.

My country, if it wants to have fit women and men available to serve in a time of crisis, needs to address health and nutrition as its most important national security issue. With so many unemployed and 64 million without health care, we might find ourselves without a citizenry fit to fill that need and protect and preserve this constitutional republic.

-- Tom Dawson

Eagle River

Close city's tax loopholes first

Before the muni considers more service or staff cuts, or before considering new taxes or raising existing taxes, it's time for the state and muni to close existing loopholes.

There is no rationale for blanket property tax or motor vehicle tax exemptions. The elderly, disabled, charitable, Native, religious and other groups all use the services -- roads, lighting, schools, EMS, police, fire, etc. -- for which these taxes are collected. I know many elderly or disabled who are quite well off and able to afford property taxes. I think we all know of at least one mega-church with plenty of cash to pay taxes.

If there is to be an exemption, there should be a strict means test for individuals, churches and corporations.

-- Alfred Barrett

Anchorage

Knik Arm Bridge long overdue

We are all happy to see the proposed Knik Arm Bridge back on track for planning and future construction. The action taken by the City of Houston and City of Wasilla was just right for the job, and hopefully the people on the Anchorage end will react positively and move it up front. Anyone who has doubts about the usefulness of that bridge needs to get on the highway from Houston, Wasilla or Palmer and commute with the rest of them, at 60-70 mph, in two lanes of solid traffic, with black ice on the highway or a trace of fresh snow, and see what every one of those commuters is faced with every day. Anything that can relieve the crowding is a godsend. Hopefully, planning and construction can be accelerated to an early conclusion. The bridge will take a lot of pressure off the existing highway and make it safer for everybody.

-- Michael A. Carson

Wasilla

Fast action needed to save FedEx Express from legislation

A bill pending in Congress threatens one of Anchorage's key economic drivers: FedEx Express. The U.S. House recently passed the 2009 FAA Reauthorization Act, which contains language that shifted FedEx Express from under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This language was inserted at the request of FedEx Express' competitor United Parcel Service (UPS). The change would force FedEx Express -- considered one of America's best-run companies -- to radically reorganize its overnight delivery system. The reorganization would harm Anchorage's already troubled economy.

Why are some in Congress trying to fix something that's not broken?

Today, over 1,250 FedEx Express employees are part of our community. Every day 38 FedEx flights take off and land at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, providing top-rate jobs and pumping millions of dollars into our local economy.

When this bill passed the House, there was neither notice nor hearing regarding NLRA's regulation of FedEx Express. The wisdom (or lack thereof) in the 290-word add-on provision was never exposed to debate.

We cannot afford to have Congress butcher one of our leading business generators. The U.S. Senate can and should excise the objectionable language and save FedEx Express from bureaucratic harassment.

-- Joseph Henri

Anchorage

Obama needs to ax Emanuel

President Obama could turn a lot of things around by very publicly firing Rahm Emanuel, who is a poison and a blight on the Obama administration, and who is obviously working his own agenda. Fire him and promise to follow through on the public health care option, and Obama will see those approval numbers start to rise again. Keep waffling and failing to rein in overbearing, self-serving subordinates, and things will keep getting worse.

-- Jeanne Casdorph

Anchorage

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