Category Archives: Issues

Our Viewpoints

95% Rule

The Non-Dependent State of Alaska

When the founding fathers formed the United States, the citizens of this great land believed that a person reached out a hand to welcome others, reached out a hand to offer a hand up, or reached out a hand to accept a hand up. Today, we hear about a person, group, community, or state that is looking into other peoples’ pockets and waiting expectantly for a hand out. Today, when organizing an economic development team, our communities first hire a lobbyist and a grant writer to solicit the peoples’ money instead of hiring a business person to finance and develop the project using their own money. Today’s method is not ethical or sustainable. We see ever increasing government “creep”, overreaching regulation and unending fiscal crises.

The following proposal is designed to protect the State of Alaska by building automatic discipline into government budgets within the State of Alaska.

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Alaska Wetlands

Most often a policy or actionable item has a basis for its existence.

Quite often that basis is applicable in more instances than was initially intended.

Sometimes that basis has a general use across a broad spectrum of areas.

            However,

The broad use of the US EPA Wetlands Rule is not effective in Alaska.

Alaska is wetlands.

  • If the intent of the Rule is to destroy property rights, then it is being used as intended.
  • If the intent of the Rule was to prevent development in Alaska, then it is being used as intended.
  • If the intent of the Rule was a transfer of wealth from producers to consumers, then the rule is being used as intended.
  • If the intent of the Rule was to ensure that Alaskans remain wards of the state and serfs to the environmental movement, then the rule is being used as intended.

Alaska is not a United States park.

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Guest Posting: Restoration Movement in Alaska

The Restoration Movement in Alaska

A Prospectus

The federal government has thwarted self-­government in Alaska and our sister states. Conditions in Alaska are ripe for initiating and leading a sustained interstate movement that challenges long-­standing federal interference with state self-­government.  The aim of this movement is to roll back the federal government’s unconstitutional accumulation of powers, and to restore the constitutionally proper balance of power between state and federal government in the United States. The name “Restoration Movement” is a placeholder for this movement.[MORE]

A State of Equilibrium

Alaska in the Balance, another look at “30-40-30”

 Whether by design or a lack of vision, Alaska was destined from the beginning to be dependent on government for its economic survival. At statehood we placed 99.75% of our land in the pockets of either the federal government or the state government.  Later, as a result of ANILCA, another approximately 44 million acres was transferred to the native corporations.  To date, neither the federal government, the state government, nor the native corporations have released any significant portion of the land base into the hands of the private citizens of the State of Alaska.[More]

30-40-30

For any state to prosper, it has to be economically balanced:

  • Too much capitalism and the state tends towards monopolies, oligarchies, and politicians chasing the powerful.
  • Too much socialism and the state tends towards an ownership state, crony capitalism, and the powerful chasing politicians.

For any state to prosper, it has to be asset balanced:

  •  Too much private land and money, then privileges and land ownership migrates to the few. When the owner is hungry, he over produces and tends to pillage the land. When the owner is not hungry, he tends towards reserves, preserves and the lands are set aside for private use only by the privileged.
  • Too much public land, then we have inefficient producers, dependent on other people’s capital, and the common man is eventually prevented from access to those lands. Those lands tend towards reserves, preserves and are set aside for private use only by the privileged. [More]

As-Was Property Taxes

Alaska’s version of Prop 13

Economic development, growth and government efficiency are key goals of most boroughs and municipalities in Alaska including those that levy a property tax.

The premise of this white paper is that the current practice within the state to annually assess property tax on the full and true value of real property and improvements is a disincentive to economic development and community growth due to increased costs of ownership. It is an expensive use of government manpower, adds a subjective element (assessment) into the taxation process, and there are more efficient ways to value and tax property.

PDR Alaska proposes that property be taxed “As-Was”, or in other words, at the price when title last changed hands. -MORE-