Readers write: Letters to the editor, April 30, 2016

Let’s talk about what the Assembly did regarding the budget this past Tuesday night. The quick, easy and nonobfuscated answer is they raised the tax bill for every property owner by just shy of 7 percent. But there are deeper, more sinister things in that tax increase.

Remember just a few short weeks ago we held an election. At that time Anchorage voters by an overwhelming majority told the mayor and his eight Assembly cronies to put the tax cap the way it was before they decided to mess with it. Now, even though we have a $15 million surplus, the new “Gang of Eight” decided to tax Anchorage property owners another $5 million for good measure. Now, three newcomers to the gang, Croft, Dunbar and Weddleton, say that they heard during their door knocking campaigns that property owners wanted tax relief. Their response was to vote for the increase and then promise to maybe give some or all of it back between September and December.

So what does this have to do with Proposition 8? Simple: They collected the tax so even if they give it back, next year they get to use the higher number as the baseline when computing how much they can raise the tax cap. So if you think that the mayor and his cronies actually listen to the voters, you’re right. They just listen to the 40 percent who agree with their thinking.

— Benjamin Sherburne

Chugiak

If Sen. Meyer and others don’t think they are influenced by lobbyists who buy them $100 dinners and spend a nice relaxing evening in a fancy restaurant, then they are either naive, lacking insight and self-reflection or crooked. I will give Mr. Meyer the benefit of the doubt and rule out “crooked.”

While Mr. Meyer dines on fine food and comments that people in the state are not feeling the pinch of the budget crunch, the rest of us have to wonder how he and other lawmakers got so out of touch with reality. Apparently he’s not feeling any pain yet. I would love to have dinner for a couple of hours with Mr. Meyer and help him understand my viewpoint. This crisis could have been mostly avoided had the legislators acted years ago to quit their reliance on oil revenues to finance a state budget and big megaprojects.

And for those legislators who say we have time to deal with this because we have a large savings account, I’ve got just one thing to say to them. You’ve got to be kidding me. Everyone has to pay their share of this crisis and that includes the oil companies. They’ve made huge profits for 30-plus years off our resource and now it’s time to bite the bullet. Those profits will come again. The use of fossil fuels isn’t going away.

We’ve got to have a graduated income tax, a small sales tax, a reasonable reduction in the Permanent Fund payout and a significant reduction in the credits we pay the oil companies. Please do your jobs, legislators, and quit trying to convince us that you aren’t influenced by big money.

— Larry Holman

Anchorage

So, our Republican U.S. Congress, the ones that don’t recognize the science behind climate change, have voted to deny funding for a new weather satellite that will serve to maintain the continuity of 40 years of high quality weather data (ADN, April 26, “The Arctic is melting. …”) The resulting gap in the data will admittedly undermine scientists’ ability to reliably understand and predict changes in climate systems.

It’s hard to believe the underlying intent of this funding decision is anything but self-serving. The climate deniers seem to have no qualms about ignoring what the majority of the scientific community has already concluded. But with new ammunition to claim the scientific data is flawed because it is not continuous, you can be assured the deniers will soon be embracing “science” to further their opinions that change is not occurring. What a surprise!

— Mike Jens

Anchorage