More PFD information needed
In response to your small article Feb. 18, "Permanent Fund, retirement boards push for more openness": It said, "The state of Alaska's top money managers are moving towards more openness with their hedge fund and other secret investments."
Wouldn't it be interesting to find out what else we're invested in "secretly"? Something an investigative reporter might like to grab onto and run with. Including an actual who and how the PFD is really run. It doubtful we'll get the secrets released voluntarily.
-- Kim Paisley
Anchorage
People need say on their taxes
As history has proven time and time again ... if there will ever be justice to our system of taxation it will have to come not from our elected officials but from the grass-roots level of the people who are forced to pay the tax.
Congratulations to the Municipal Taxpayers League of Anchorage on gathering enough signatures to successfully place the initiative on April's ballot seeking to repair our tax cap.
-- Bob Maier
Anchorage
Can Palin justify per diem pay?
Gov. Sarah Palin should not be allowed to collect per diem for staying in her home. When she was elected governor, she knew the governor's mansion was located in Juneau and that is where she should be. I cannot for one minute believe that this is OK with the people of Alaska, and I do not see how she can justify this in her own mind. -- Kim Chatman
Eagle River
Lincoln had clear views on slavery
In his Feb. 5 letter, August Cisar said, "Lincoln was ambivalent toward slavery." In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln consistently spoke against slavery. One of his most famous quotes (from a June 16, 1858, speech) was "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free."
Cisar said that Lincoln sought the murder of Confederate wives and children by rebellious slaves. The man who said, "With malice toward none; and charity for all" would never have sought the murder of anyone.
On Feb. 12, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin turned 200 years old. They have given us much to celebrate.
-- Vic Fitzgerald
Willow
Not a great time to say 'me too!'
Lisa, thanks for being another faithful Republican who "falls in line".
It seems to me that the GOP has become a huge albatross around your neck. You would rather deny help to Americans hurting from this economic crisis than fall out of line and support our president. People like you and your cohorts don't have to worry about where your children will go to college, how you will put food on your table or how you will pay your mortgage. You want the stimulus money only if it goes directly into your pockets (as tax cuts). I don't think that will create very many jobs or fix our badly crumbling infrastructure. I will remember you in the voting booth.
-- Loretta Jacobsen
Anchorage
Sales tax could fund public schools
The Anchorage School District is not in any way competitive when it comes down to alternative education. Homeschooled and privately educated children have consistently proven their ability to exceed the publicly educated average on standardized tests.
I choose to educate my children through alternative measures that have been proven to trump a public education.
I'm not indicating in the least that all parents who send their children to public school don't care about their children. But I am implicating said parents if they believe that the public school system does not require supplementation.
I don't send my kids to be publicly educated by the government. Ergo, why should I, as a homeowner, have to bear the financial burden of paying for the education of Anchorage's youth by default? I'm already paying for the education of my own children.
I propose a restructuring of the Anchorage School District's funding. A sales tax is the only fair tax. The burden of financial responsibility will then fall on the entirety of the Anchorage populace. The youths themselves will pay for their own education when they purchase consumer items. If the children in Anchorage see their money going to fund their education perhaps then they would be further motivated to finish high school.
-- Ron Yeager
Anchorage
Financiers still just don't get it
Banks won't lend but they will party to the break of dawn. How callous is it that so many Americans are out of work and hard-earned taxpayer dollars are bailing out so many lending institutions, yet these stingy institutions won't lend? Thank you, President Obama, for seeing to it that this behavior is not tolerated, and thank you, new U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, for vowing to hold Wall Street accountable for any behavior that contributes to the further decline of the American economy. Too bad we couldn't stop AIG from abusing taxpayer money. Maybe this is why AIG auto changed its name to 21st Century Insurance. They want to party under a different name.
-- William Cruz
Anchorage
Palin should see to her own pork
If Sarah Palin really cares about cutting the budget, she should start with slashing her "pork per diem" and give us a break.
-- Mary McCrum
Talkeetna
Stimulus panders to the feckless
What is our elected government thinking? They want to ruin what is left. I don't want my grandkids to pay for their mistakes. The stimulus package is all wrong, it will not work. You give people money, it decreases the desire to work. Why should my tax dollars go to help people who couldn't afford their mortgages? Why should I have to pay for people who can't think?
I bought a house I could afford after a lot of thinking, and I make the payments on time every month because I planned. So now I have to pay for those that can't think ahead? Wrong.
People are now trained to think that the government will bail them out. I am sick and tired of people expecting government to take care of them. If a CEO asks for help it should come with the request in one hand and his resignation and those of all the board in the other. Obama doesn't have a clue what most people want.
Stop any bill that has any pork, period. Enough is enough.
-- Michael R. Howard
Anchorage
Financial debacle is GOP's baby
President Bush's administration allowed the housing crisis to come about by relaxing the rules on lending and building a huge national deficit. No one in the Republican Party objected while this was happening.
Now that someone is trying to get us out of this mess all they can do is raise objections about everything. They say the stimulus package is too large, when most economists are saying it is too small. They object that people who brought the trouble on themselves might get help, after giving $900 billion to the banks that caused the problem with no strings attached.
President Obama has tried to bring them to the table, but unless they can have it all their way, they don't want to talk. Gov. Sarah Palin, as well as the governors of several states, say they may not take some money on principle. That is the dumbest thing I have heard in a long time. Everyone should get behind the president and try to help instead of crying that he is doing it wrong. The Republicans caused the problem, now they should try to help fix it.
-- Richard W. Fletcher
Chugiak