ANCHORAGE –
It’s a diverse coalition of some well-known Alaskans that’s calling on lawmakers to act now: The “Alaska’s Future” campaign kicked off Tuesday in an effort to save the state from financial ruin down the road. Coalition members include
GCI President Ron Duncan and
former Gov. Tony Knowles.
On Thursday, Helvi Sankvik, president and CEO of the
Nana corporation, and Vince Beltrami, Alaska
AFL-CIO president, both members of the coalition, joined Daybreak to talk about the campaign and how using a portion of the Permanent Fund earnings could help pay for services such as health care, education and public safety.
“We have a real serious crisis — $3.5 billion budget deficit,” Sankvik said. “We need to make some hard decisions. It’s not popular to talk about the Permanent Fund earnings, but we think it’s necessary and we think if we speak out now and we help educate people, folks down in Juneau will recognize that it’s safe to take some deep steps.”
The coalition encourages the Legislature to act sooner, rather than later.
“What we’re trying to do is empower the Legislature to take a bold step,” Sankvik said. “And we believe citizens ought to be telling the legislators, ‘you have my permission to do this, it’s safe to do that.’ We’re asking folks to sign on, contact their legislators, let them know that we want them to deal with this crisis this year. We cannot afford to wait. It will get worse and eventually our PFD program will go away and the state will go in to a serious economic decline.”
http://www.ktva.com/alaskas-future-campaign-448/
