[quote=79S]The money is not coming in because idiots like Wanker have to dick with the oil taxes every time they get into office. .
Actually it'sd not Walker who has proposed endless changes to the oil tax system, but give him credit for trying to fix it. It's crazy for the State to hand-out exploration gift money (cashable credits) based on promises of production later, it's money that we don't have. And Walker's budget, if you recall, was a compromise between the two sides to try to get something,
anything, agreed to and that still hasn't happened. This State has been spending money like they stole it, and that's the truth. It worked in the bonanza days, but it doesn't work now. We're a one-trick pony, and with oil prices low and staying low we can't keep spending money, building roads that we can't maintain, and sharing revenues with cities and boroughs that won't get their own fiscal houses in order.
We build roads here because we get Federal money, but they don't give us money to maintain the roads, and that's money we don't have. The other argument is we build roads to keep the economy going (i.e. keep the contractors employed). Well like any other free-market system if there are too many contractors for the available work, then some of them need to go find work elsewhere. Yea, that's harsh, but it happens in every industry. We're not socialist here, we should not be paying folks to build stuff we don't need just to give them a livelihood. When we need roads and have the money for it, we'll always be able to find a construction firm. It doesn't mean they have to have guaranteed employment for their whole lives here just to be available at that time.
You don't like paying AK-LNG to develop a gas pipeline? Well the big producers ain't doing it, because it's not in their economic interests at this time. Bakken and Marcellus shale gas is too dang cheap down south where the market is. So unless we develop it, it'll be a stranded resource for another 100 years. ConocoPhillips is closing the LNG plant in Nikiski, so that should tell you what they think of the prospects for LNG in Alaska.
Walker is trying to walk a tight-rope between the spend-spend-spend parties that hill the House and the slash-slash-slash parties in the Senate. I think he's doing the best job anyone could right now.
