Here’s a challenge to the right-wing group “Alaska Policy Forum.”
If it insists on publishing the names and salaries of Alaska’s public employees on the premise that the “taxpayers have a right to know,” I must insist on two things:
1. Support the passage of an income tax in Alaska so that the general public can actually be called “taxpayers.” As of now, individual Alaskans do not pay taxes that support state government. This way, when APF spout off about “the taxpayer” in Alaska, they will actually mean someone other than corporations;
2. If the oil companies successfully defeat our tax initiative and they continue to be subsidized under the current oil tax law, I want APF to publish all the salaries of the oil company employees that “the taxpayers” are subsidizing.
Elstun W. Lauesen
Anchorage
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