OPINION: I guess this is my public testimony. I write and read and make things and I hope those things will float out into the world and help nudge our collective consciousness toward a better place.
I felt like this video (below) was heavy handed and not as funny as some of the other political stuff I've done in the past but I'm also feeling the weight of a lot of frustration and futility. It was just a few years ago that we trudged through the VECO scandal and my faith in our state government never really recovered.
Ethics are as lax as ever, we have lawmakers who work for oil companies voting on issues that will directly affect their careers and pocketbooks. It's a mess.
The amount of money Gov. Sean Parnell's proposed tax structure costs Alaska over the next few years is estimated to be in the $5 billion-$6 billion range. To put that in perspective, for that amount, Alaska could own the New York Yankees, Manchester United, and the Dallas Cowboys.
According to the Forbes Global 2000 we could use that money to pick up Tesoro, US Steel, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, Goodyear, Safeway, or even bigger fish if we just wanted a controlling interest.
Or we could start our own oil drilling company.
The argument I usually hear against a state owned oil company is corruption and inefficiency. Well, the corruption is already there and a state owned oil company could only be more transparent to the public and lawmakers. Right now, people are trying to make important decisions based on speculation rather than information.
Inefficient? Yes, it would probably be massively inefficient but all those jobs and all that leaky money would stay right here in Alaska. It's the Ted Stevens model of trickle down economics, corruption and inefficiency filling the pockets of locals and spilling out into the regional economy.
Whatever happens, oil is a finite resource and we should be preparing for decline and transition in the long game.
Also, I'm really tired of hearing about North Dakota. Let's come up with a plan that works for Alaska.
Patrick Race makes short films and illustrates the Alaska Robotics comic. He studied computer science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and screenwriting at TheFilmSchool. He was named to Alaska's Top 40 Under 40 in 2006 and was a founding member of the Juneau Underground Motion Picture Society.
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