By MARCY SOWERS
We often seen people change their tune the minute they step through those capitol pillars in Juneau. They campaign on principles and leave those shattered upon the Capital steps only to subvert the will of their constituents over and over.
I do not look forward to the rest of Sen. Rob Yundt’s term, unless he suddenly regains the principles he campaigned on.
I recently attended a Republican District 27 meeting in which Sen. Yundt was a participant by Zoom. He talked about his bill Senate Bill 92.
There were so many red flags in his commentary and when he answered questions. The two main words or phrases that passed from his lips most often were parity and crony capitalism and he seemed fixated on the fact that the founder of Hilcorp has personal wealth.
If I had to guess he has a strong leaning toward the principles held by those on the left. In fact, his statements sounded more like the rantings of a DEI social justice warrior than a conservative. He couldn’t see the difference between the behemoth that is ConocoPhillips and the much-smaller Hilcorp, despite saying he owns several S corporations himself.
I really must compliment the commentary given by former Rep. Christopher Kurka, who during this meeting clearly and respectfully shared the differences between an S corporation and a C corp, and offered to provide that information to Sen. Yundt.
To me it is mind boggling that this “conservative” senator would find it appalling that there is a benefit to an employer who employs around 1,500 Alaskans. He kept hammering that he wants to bring “parity” between the two very different corporations. He was incensed that the smaller corporation had a small advantage.
This in many ways is not an advantage, as the very nature of an S corp limits it. Given that we are living in an “America First” presidential administration, he might want to encourage more S corporations, as they are all-American owned. You’d think we might want to see more S corporations doing extremely well.
Yundt espoused that if Hilcorp was taxed the same as a C corporation it would result in a roughly $1,500 difference in the PFD per Alaskan.
Checkmate. We all know that there is no way the Democrat-led legislature will abide by the statutory calculation and there is NO way that any Alaskan will see that kind of increase in PFD until we have a deeply conservative Republican governor and actually take control of both the House and Senate.
Even though that is what we have voted for time and time again, that is not what we have gotten and I am not the only citizen tired of it.
On another note, aside from encouraging the Alaska Republican Party to deliver an official response to Sen. Yundt’s departure from basic Republican principles, I encourage the Republican Party in Alaska to seize the opportunity to truly stand with President Donald J. Trump’s initiative to ferret out waste and fraud.
I have worked in the nonprofit world, worked within systems funded by both federal and state dollars. I have witnessed the misuse of funds. For example, I was a substance abuse counselor working in a maximum-security correctional center. It was required to become certified in a program to reduce recidivism and I successfully completed the training, like many others who worked with this population. My agency and others spent thousands of dollars certifying facilitators of a program that actually had evidenced based results in reducing recidivism.
When it came down to it, the money spent was wasted. The Department of Corrections would not shell out the $20 per participant for inmates to get the workbook for the program. I was not allowed to copy or recreate any of the workbook material; I signed a statement saying I wouldn’t and I actually hold true to what I say I will do. Certified for nothing, no benefit gained. Money wasted.
We see the same thing play out in governments and schools. I have seen agencies drive up problems based on funding while ignoring the real problems. We need to abandon the way we have done things. It’s not working. We need to get back to logical and evidence-based results.
We need to “DOGE the heck” out of our state government spending.
We don’t need another department like Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Department of Agriculture. Yes, food security in Alaska is a real issue but creating a larger government will do nothing to help Alaskans, it creates more government spending increasing our societal burden of inflation even more.
Alaska’s education system is failing and all we hear is about the government throwing more money at it than most other states with worse results. More government spending doesn’t solve the inherent problems. We need to find new creative and cost-saving ways to solve the problems. That is what so many citizens hope will happen. Parents have been pulling their children out of schools and homeschooling them instead, because the government is doing such a terrible job at it.
I am not alone in Alaskans who would like to see the momentum of what we see working with President Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE and bring that mindset back to the marble pillars of the state capitol in Juneau. We need to pare back our government spending. Reckless spending and throwing money at failing systems doesn’t work in a household, and it most certainly doesn’t work in Juneau.
We don’t need more reliance on federal dollars. We don’t need to create more government. We don’t need to disincentivize businesses who have invested heavily in Alaska. We need to solve our revenue problems by cutting back on government spending. We start by uniting the conservatives: undeclared, and independents, libertarians and others in this state and we must get rid of ranked choice voting. We all must work together to become the savvy steward of our natural resources and become an energy giant. We need an Alaska that is a is an economic powerhouse not a government heavy bureaucracy only alive due to reliance on the federal teat.
Written by Marcy Sowers, who is an Alaskan Native of the Tlingit tribe. Born in Juneau, AK and currently living in Wasilla, AK. She is the mother of three. Marcy attended Stanford University. She is married to author Mark Sowers and helps format his books. (Go ahead, give his books a read.)