I’m writing this letter because I recently heard about the governor’s vetoes to the Legislature’s budget. I, like so many others, believe these vetoes are a horrible idea. First of all, cutting $130 million from the university’s budget will not only destroys jobs, but also destroys learning opportunities for students of the university and students in the Anchorage School District. This should be a wake-up call for everyone that the governor we have elected is a smaller-scale Donald Trump. He has met with President Trump five times in his term as governor and he is cutting a lot of different things just to get more money in our Permanent Fund dividend.
I don’t really understand all of politics, because I’m only 11, but I was able to wrap my mind around this starting earlier today, when my mom told me that the University of Alaska Anchorage debate camp will not be taking tuition unless the Legislature overturns the governor’s vetoes and restores funding. Like I said earlier, the faculty will not be available for this camp, and the infrastructure will not available to take the tuition payment. So even if the tuition is paid the infrastructure won’t be able to support the tuition, making it harder to give money back to refund, if needed.
These are the reasons that I and many others need the Legislature to overturn the governor’s cuts to the University of Alaska and the other important state services, such as benefits to seniors and the homeless.
— Shayne Afolabi
Anchorage
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