In viewing the split Legislature and noting the public support for the governor and his vetoes, I am left to ponder who these supporters are? I wonder how many of them have a student in a public school in the Valley and/or have a child that is attending the University of Alaska Anchorage?
On an associated note, as the old basketball warrior Greg Svendsen so succinctly put it in a letter to the ADN, something is wrong with this picture when an entry level border guard in the Southwest U.S. makes $52,000 a year, while a beginning teacher in the Anchorage school system makes an average $38,000 a year (with a degree).
In a Dermot Cole column a couple of months back, he said some of his Lower 48 contacts were amazed that a state with the lowest taxes of all 50 states has an argument between legislators and the governor fighting over whether to pay its citizens either $1 billion or $2 billion this year, and whether to support draconian tax cuts to a number of basic services and programs in all areas of Alaska.
— Mike Scanlan
Anchorage
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