MOORE UP NORTH: Disaster Capitalism Comes to Alaska

This week’s Moore Up North is perhaps the most relevant, urgent and important program we have ever done.

Senator Bill Wielechowski came on the show and blew holes through the million dollar propaganda campaign that is attempting to provide, over the next several years, up $20 billion dollars in welfare to the most insatiable and profitable multinational corporations in the history of civilization. They have set so many consecutive records for record profit, Guinness stopped counting. AND…Senator Wielechowski used Governor Sean Parnell’s own data to point out their misinformation onslaught.

This episode of Moore Up North will be rebroadcast statewide on Saturday, March 12 at 4pm and Sunday, March 13 at 9am statewide on KYES Channel 5.

Bloggers: Please feel free to repost to get the word out. Richard Mauer wrote a great piece in the ADN tonight and it looks like the tide might be turning in Alaska’s favor. The time is NOW to email/message and call your state senator and representative. TODAY!

The Slides in Senator Wielechowski’s presentation may be found here.

Consider this: for absolutely NO INVESTMENT GUARANTEES, Governor Parnell wants to give away our FAIR SHARE!  What, you ask, is our FAIR SHARE? It’s roads, ports, schools, airports, health care, running the state. Our FAIR SHARE is also…wait for it…NOT having a STATE INCOME TAX, PROPERTY TAX and SALES TAX!  It’s having a PERMANENT FUND and a SAVINGS ACCOUNT and a CONSTITUTIONAL BUDGET RESERVE! In short, it’s NOT being BANKRUPT like nearly every other state in the union!

If HB110 and SB49 become law, Alaska will be in deficit spending mode in a couple years. Within five years, our $12 billion savings account will be wiped out. Once that happens and we have no revenue coming in, how long until the Permanent Fund is raided? How long till we see new unprecedented statewide taxes-covering income, property, sales, and whatever else they can think of?

And consider this, Norway started their Permanent Fund in 1990, the year AFTER the Exxon Valdez disaster and 14 years after the Alaska Permanent Fund was established. Yet, Norway has $560 BILLION DOLLARS! Alaska has $38 BILLION DOLLARS! Norway somehow managed to sock away $522 BILLION more than our Permanent Fund. How is that possible, you ask? Because they are getting their FAIR SHARE! And you know what? Norway’s taxes are higher than ours. And even though they have less oil than we do, Oil Producers are investing there!

Imagine if we had been getting our FAIR SHARE since 1976. What would our fund be? What if we had what Norway has now? We would have $28,000,000,000 for state government just off of a lousy 5% return! Even a free-spender like Governor Parnell would be hard-pressed to spend all of that!

And some breaking news, Great Bear is an up and coming energy company that just invested $8 million for acreage on the North Slope. They plan on a long-term development strategy that will invest $2 billion in Alaska each year over decades. They say there are hundreds of billions of barrels of high quality shale oil on the North Slope. They are forecasting 450,000 barrels per day by 2013 and much more after that.

But wait, there’s more!

Repsol is a Spanish Major that just announced it will be investing $768 million dollars in Alaska.

And two other new independents, ENI and Brooks Range Petroleum are also investing on the North Slope.

Apparently, they didn’t get the memo that Alaska’s Closed for Business!

And, Alaska is NOT closed for business according to the Tax Foundation. We are the NUMBER TWO most favorable business climate out of all 50 states. Read it and weep here!

Note to Chicken Little Murkowski: The Sky is NOT falling!

Governor Sean Parnell is attacking the late, great Wally Hickel’s OWNER STATE by putting forward a bill that is nothing more than a welfare program for the wealthiest corporations on the planet!

Call and email your legislator now. Tell them HANDS OFF ACES! NO on HB110 and SB49!

Alaska State Public Opinion Messages System for all legislators can be sent here. Email your Alaska State Representative and Alaska State Senator.

The House Finance Committee will be taking public testimony on HB110 on Thursday, March 24 and Friday March 25 at the Legislative Information Office downtown on 4th Avenue.

Check out Jeanne Devon’s great piece on this resource give-away on The Mudflats!