Alex Gimarc: The 907 Initiative is back, using dark Outside money to attack Rep. Mia Costello

The Outside money political hit squad calling itself the 907 Initiative is back in the negative advertising game. In this round, the 907 Initiative has produced attack ads and a mailer aimed at pressuring Anchorage House Rep. Mia Costello to support an unaffordable increase in education spending.

The claims on the mailer are shocking, simply shocking (/sarc), accusing her of voting against legislation to reverse Anchorage school cuts. According to the mailer, her vote supports:

• Eliminating middle school sports
• Eliminative high school hockey, swimming and gymnastics
• Eliminating IGNITE
• Even bigger class size (over 30 middle schoolers in a class)

What an awful turn of events (/sarc).

This smelled a lot like standard political gamesmanship from Democrats and their dark money backers, where a budget increase that is smaller than what they are demanding is treated as a DOGE-level budget cut.

After a short conversation with Rep. Costello, it turns out my suspicion was correct, as Democrats in the House are demanding a $1,000 increase in the Base Student Allocation — an amount not earned, deserved or affordable. 

Last year, the House voted to make a one-time $680 increase in the BSA. We can’t afford that either, but that is another discussion for another time.

The criticism appears to be based on the House vote March 12 to approve HB 69, Education Funding – Increase BSA and send it on to the Senate for action.  The legislation contained the $1,000 increase in BSA.  It passed with a 24 – 16 vote with Costello and David Nelson being the only two Anchorage House members voting against it, opting instead to support the current $680 increase from last year.  This is why they are being targeted by Democrats and their dark money mouthpiece.    

The 907 Initiative is telling us that if the extra BSA isn’t approved, Nuclear Winter will set in statewide.  Yeah, right.  

While I don’t doubt that the Anchorage School District will attempt to inflict as much pain on students and their parents as humanly possible if they don’t get every penny they are demanding, I do know all of the claims made by the 907 Initiative represent little more than threats.  

Like most of us, I have a difficult time responding positively to threats, especially threats against children, the only ones educrats and their enablers seem capable of making.  It is essentially hostage taking, which is a less than positive business model or a lifestyle choice. Somewhere along the line, Alaskan voters need to put a stop to this little game.  

Nowhere in the discussion is anything about our overfunded, failing schools.  Nowhere in the discussion is anything about how Alaska has managed to lavishly fund public schools for half a century and ended up with failing students and a public education system that ranks dead last nationwide. Nowhere in the discussion is any acknowledgement or consideration of the simple fact that the single most important thing the legislature can do to improve education is get control of the money as close to students as humanly possible.  

Democrats and their hired guns continue to play this little game without political pushback.  We are at the point in the education funding game that 1983’s War Games arrived at the end of the movie:  ”The only winning move is not to play.”  

Another way to say this is that if increasing education spending only makes public education worse, perhaps it’s not the level of spending that’s the problem.  

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.