Walker turns back on climate
Government leaders wanting to avoid or delay politically difficult decisions often do so by simply appointing a committee to study the issue. This is precisely what Gov. Bill Walker is now doing with climate change.
Walker's recent administrative order establishing an "Alaska Climate Change Strategy" (which was initiated 10 years ago by Gov. Sarah Palin, but entirely ignored by Parnell and Walker), and a "Climate Action for Alaska Leadership Team" may seem like progress. It isn't.
It has been clear for years exactly what actions need to be taken to reduce the risks and impacts of climate change in Alaska, and many Alaskans have urged Walker to act decisively on this throughout his entire term in office. Yet he has done absolutely nothing on the issue, that is, until now that his campaign for re-election has begun. Most Alaskans are not fooled by such political trickery.
Clearly, Walker's climate change order is simple political expedient by which the administration can pretend to be responsive to the threat, deflect criticism of its tragic inaction until after the election, and continue doing nothing. Amazingly, Walker has already invoked his announced establishment of the climate committee to argue for drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
No amount of clever electioneering will conceal Walker's historic inattention to climate change. None. Had he genuinely wanted to take significant action on climate change, he would have and should have done so years ago. He could do so today. But he hasn't, and he won't.
Whatever the climate committee recommends, it would be up to the next administration to implement. We know from experience that if it is another Walker term, nothing substantive will be done on this issue.
And as Alaska slips deeper into climate chaos in the coming years, history will rightfully place Bill Walker on the long list of politicians whose inattention to this grave threat foreclosed our sustainable future.
— Rick Steiner, Anchorage
We need legal homeless camps
I have always maintained that everyone is only a few hours away from becoming homeless. When natural disasters occur and homes are lost, the instinct of survival kicks in and the top priority is to find shelter, be it a hotel, gymnasium or car. If these obvious shelters aren't available, we create shelters the best way we can. In fact, we can't survive very long without them. More often than not, there are other folks in the same predicament and a further instinct is to group together for security and fellowship.
No matter what the reason is for a person who becomes homeless, the fact is that shelter is of the utmost importance. A roof over and a pillow under our heads is the same for all of us, a reasonable desire, wouldn't you say?
The homeless folks in Anchorage or any other community don't really have a ready solution for their plight except to find cover, warmth and sustenance. Ask a homeless person if they know how to get off the streets and listen to their answer. If they know a procedure, it still takes time to go through the process. Do any of the professionals have the quick and easy answer to help a person from homelessness?
When the city routes the homeless from their camp, where do they go but to seek another place of shelter at least for that night? There is a cycle that needs to be broken and that involves serving the basic survival instinct of the shelterless. One way to do that is to create legal homeless camps where professionals could work with the homeless person, working together on resolving some of their problems. Instead of the current bleakness and fear that most likely preoccupies the minds of the homeless in their tattered and temporary camps, wouldn't it be better to set up legal camps and to provide the pathways outward toward hope, resolutions and permanent housing?
— Pat Wendt, Soldotna
Trump, Franken share much
It is sad to realize how much our president and Al Franken have in common.
— Nicholas Cassara, Palmer
COLAs are necessary for retirees
As a federal retiree who has served our country for years, I am deeply concerned with a provision in the president's budget that would eliminate cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for current and future federal retirees. I ask that my representative and senators oppose any proposals that would reduce COLAs for federal retirees.
The annual COLA provides protections against inflation, but even the current calculation is inadequate because it understates the impact of health care spending, yielding lower annual COLAs. Reducing or eliminating my COLA further threatens my health and financial security.
This proposal would diminish the value of my hard-earned annuity by allowing inflation to erode the benefit over the course of my retirement. With the cost of goods and medical care on the rise, I will not sit back and allow this attack to gain a foothold.
— Carolynn Hickey, Anchorage
Don't make crosswords harder
Please place the New York Times crossword puzzle (both grid and clues) either above or below the fold.
Thank you.
— Pete Hobbs, Anchorage
Alaska leaders support bad bill
I would like to know why Sens. Sullivan and Murkowski would support a tax bill that according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office cuts $25 billion from Medicare, a cut that can only be waived by a majority of the House and a 60-vote supermajority of the Senate. That thanks to laws created by the tea party's infamous 2010 sequester showdown over government spending, automatic cuts spring into action anytime Congress passes a bill that balloons the federal deficit, as the tax bill would. This would trigger cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, and the Border Patrol, among other agencies and programs.
Why would Sen. Murkowski do this to working-class Alaskans? I would expect it of Sen. Sullivan, who it appears to me could care less about the problems of middle-class Alaskans. I hope that my write-in vote for Sen. Murkowski was not wasted.
— Michael McKinnon, Anchorage
Put country before party
Dear Sen. Murkowski, Sen. Sullivan and Rep. Young:
President Trump says he believes Vladimir Putin when Putin says he didn't interfere in our election. Trump called the directors of the intelligence agencies, "political hacks" for saying that Putin did interfere.
John Brennan and James Clapper say that Trump is vulnerable to Russian manipulation, and that by not calling Putin out for interfering in our elections he has "given Putin a pass." They say that because Trump is vulnerable to this type of manipulation the United States is "in peril."
I know you can see how this undermines and endangers our democracy. I know you know that Trump is a buffoon.
I wish that I believed that you would put country before party and speak out; but I do not. It takes courage to say that the emperor has no clothes, and members of your party have generally proven themselves to be utterly craven.
No, I expect you to stand by your man even while he destroys our institutions and the public's faith in those institutions. You will privately lament the decline of our democracy while publicly participating in that decline through silent complicity.
Please prove me wrong. If you have integrity, now is the time to prove it.
— Scott Hayden, Anchorage