Ya know, I love this state. I really do. There’s no place else on earth that comes close. But jumpin’ jesus, the politics and the politicians are more than one can bear at times.
First we have Don Young, our Republican Rep in WDC. Here’s a guy who is proposing that all Americans are taxed on the number of miles they drive and report it on their income tax forms. He’s a pubbie, so he’s calling it a ‘user fee’, wink-wink, but we all know where that goose lays its eggs.
Then we have all the local hacks, the worst of whom is arguably our governor, Frank Murkowski, former U.S. Senator ®, and notorious in Washington for keeping a cheap gray suit from collapsing for 23 years.
Here’s a guy in charge of a state with more freaking money than Croesus, who can’t figure out how to take care of the state debt without handouts to his corporate buddies in the logging and oil industries.
His solution, of course, is to cut state services. His biggest coup to date is to slash the budget of the DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation). These are not only the folks that try to protect the vast amounts of forest and parkland here in Alaska, but also oversea such things as restaurant inspections on a local level.
Well, today it was announced by DEC that their budget has been cut to such an extent that they will no longer be able to perform restaurant inspections and Gov. Murky has stated that it will have to be up to the business owners to police themselves.
Well, this sort of deregulation has worked so well in the past with people like Enron and the airlines, that it’s sure to be a raving success. Perhaps they can serve Immodium with every meal and train the rats in the kitchen to do standup comedy. Assuming you survive the cruise ship sickness on the way up, that is.
So if you’re thinking of visiting, you should probably make sure your hepatitis vaccinations are current and plan on treating the place as though it were a backward, third-world cesspool.
