Ballot Measure 1 is about money — it is about the failure of Alaska’s Republican leadership to support any meaningful alternative revenue while promoting empty rhetoric about cuts and distracting voters by offering insignificant alternatives. While Kevin Banks’ commentary Aug. 5 in the ADN was right about the impact of political influence, it could have gone further to show how industry is going to reap what they have sowed.
Ballot Measure 1 is citizens' last resort in the face of a Legislature and administration that can not come up with their own revenue solution. If industry doesn't like what is being proposed, they have only themselves to blame for supporting politics that spent our savings, gutted our university, eliminated support for local job creation, avoided new revenue sources and left us with no alternatives. The party of "no taxes" will have done more to raise taxes on industry, and future generations of Alaskans, than any other factor when we finally get to a sustainable budget.
Measure 1 is a blunt solution, but it’s our last option and perhaps will, after passing and being a bridge for at least two years, lead industry to support our long-term Alaska economy and, as Mr. Banks noted, “our wider interests.”
H. “Ky” Holland
Anchorage
Have something on your mind? Send to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Letters under 200 words have the best chance of being published. Writers should disclose any personal or professional connections with the subjects of their letters. Letters are edited for accuracy, clarity and length.