Governher Palin Screws UAA

The Governher vetoed a quarter-billion dollars from the state budget today. Included in her wide-ranging cuts was the one-million dollars UAA officials had hoped to get in order to begin the planning for UAA's proposed new arena. She said nobody should be surprised and I for one aren't. "Now is the time to save for the future," she said. She repeated it. "Live within our means" was another of her sound-bytes. I'm laughing out loud at the complete and total hypocrisy of that horseshit. Our "means"? It's an effective bit of rhetoric since I'd venture to guess that 75% of people in Alaska aren't really aware of what "our means" are.

The reality of the fiscal situation in Alaska is pretty positive. Not only is there 39 billion dollars in the "savings account" the ongoing revenue picture is generally as rosy as it has ever been. While other states struggle with increasing income taxes our fine state is FLUSH with money ...

39.3 billion dollars invested in the Permanent Fund
-projected to be 48 Billion by 2013

2.39 billion in revenues for 2008
-Thats 60% more than 2007

2.2 billion in the budget reserve
-Money set aside from previous years

I'm not going to search through other state's revenue numbers but I highly doubt that per capita there is a state in the U.S. in better shape than Alaska. 2 billion dollars a year in revenues without taxing a single person in the state? That's nothing less than fucking sweet! But yeah ... it's time to save for the future because the 39.3 billion in our savings account isn't growing fast enough. It's only going to grow 1.5 billion a year? Man ... what the hell is up with that? Do any of us really have an idea of how much a billion dollars is. Here's how much ...

If you spent a dollar every minute it would take 1900 years to spend it.
A stack of a billion one dollar bills would reach the edge of space.
A billion ones could "wallpaper" the entire Transalaska Pipeline with enough leftover to buy a sweet Lambroghini.
Counting a billion dollars at the rate of one per second would take 30 years.
If you earned $1000.00 a day it would take more than 2,700 years to reach a Billion.

And the State of Alaska has 39.3 of those billions? Nearly every penny of that $39,346,700,000 is invested outside of Alaska. The state owns a shopping mall in Virgina as part of the $3,762,200,000 (3.7B) it has invested in real estate. $11,527,500,000 (11.5B) invested in the U.S. Stock market. $5,401,300,000 (5.4B) in international stocks. $9,332,700,000 (9.3B) in U.S. Bonds. Apparently, the Permanent Fund Corporation doesn't see much potential to investing in Alaska since it has the pathetically low total of $169,300,000 (.16B) invested in Alaska. We Alaskan's only pay attention to the dividend that these huge investments pay us. When the State spews it's paltry $60,000,000 (.06B) to it's citizenry every year it is getting exactly what that money was intended to get ... silence from the sheep.

The "Rainy Day" fund started 30 years ago in order to buttress the State in times of need has turned into nothing other than the plaything of high-powered money management specialists whose goals are nothing more than to keep the fund growing at the highest possible rate. The promise of the past has died. This chick isn't the first greedy asshole to toss a shoveful of shit onto the Permanent Fund coffin and she won't be the last.

This fiasco (I mean orgy of self-gratifying masturbatory gubernatorial power flexing) has little to do with "fiscal responsibility". It has little to do with satisfying her core republican constituency. It has everything to do with flexing her muscles. Power corrupts. We've all seen the results of corruption the past few months. We've seen some of the "mighty" fall. We thought we got rid of a hubris-filled asshole when we threw Murkowski out on his arrogant ass. Unfortunately, we (I shouldn't include myself since I didn't vote for the chick) turned around and elected someone who (rather than live up to her responsibilities to represent the people of the state) is more interested in showing everyone how tough she is. It's funny how early supporters of her highness didn't see the same level of cuts in their districts. Politics as usual in Alaska. Give someone power in this state and you can guarantee it will fill their head with visions of their own self-deluded greatness. If you were one of those people that thought perhaps a new generation of leadership in this state would add to progress you were seriously mistaken. This chick is all about consolidating her personal political power in much the same way as Murkowski (and that piece of shit Dubya) have done.

But hooray for "fiscal responsibility" eh?