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Phone and internet service down for Juneau and Southeast; undersea cable break blamed

Suzanne Downing
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Phone and internet service down for Juneau and Southeast; undersea cable break blamed

AT%T internet and phone service is down in Juneau and across Southeast Alaska, due to a damaged undersea cable that sources say is near Whittier.

“Customers in the Juneau area may be experiencing service disruptions due to damage to an undersea cable operated by another provider,” said s a statement from AT&T. The other provider is Alaska Communications Services and that company said the problem started on Thursday night.

At 8:20 a.m., Alaska Communications wrote that a team worked through the night on the network issues impacting Southeast Alaska.

“We have technical teams dispatched to multiple locations to troubleshoot. This is our top priority and we’ll share an update as soon as we have more information,” ACS said.

At 12:30 p.m., the company confirmed the subsea cable damage: “We are dispatching a repair ship. We do not yet have an estimated time for restoral. We are also working to find alternate ways to restore connectivity in Juneau. This is our top priority and we deeply apologize for the inconvenience. We know how important staying connected is to you and we will not rest until this is fixed. We will continue to share updates as we have more information.”

At the Alaska Capitol, all internet and cell phone service is affected and there is no access to the Basis legislation information site. Some employees of the building are working from home with the use of their home internet.

Anchorage Daily News takes a pickaxe to mining

Suzanne Downing
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The resident historian to the state’s largest failing newspaper detoured into an online fight with Alaska’s mining trade association this week.

David Reamer, who contributes to the Anchorage Daily News on snippets for state and local stories of the past, took time to spar with the Alaska Miners Association on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

In a post, the mining association wrote “Greta Schuerch, Teck Alaska Red Dog Mine, presents to the Alaska House Resources Committee on the mine’s amazing story of benefitting a region, Alaska Native Corporation region, and being responsible stewards of the environment.” 

The association was engaged in its annual trade trip to the state capitol building in Juneau. The journey to southeast Alaska’s largest city, where the largest private sector employers are the Greens Creek and Kensington Mines, is a unique opportunity for the large metal mine and placer operators to speak with lawmakers and staff.

It is also a chance for the Resources committees in both the House and Senate to get updated the status of the industry, and to dispel the rumors that this intensive activity generates from entrenched environmental groups. 

Reamer followed up on the mining group’s tweet by writing “To learn more about their role as stewards of the environment, just google ‘Red Dog Mine and EPA.’” 

The dog whistle employed by Reamer is a catchall the environmental lobby has used for years on mines in Alaska: Invoke the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the disputes between operators and bureaucracies who engage in wars of definitions.

The EPA under the Obama and Biden administrations were actively colluding with environmental activists on controversial proposed mines, such as the Pebble Project in southwest Alaska. This collusion included “findings” of environmental unsuitability, and “risk of unmanaged release.” These type of terms served as the impetus for recently Democratic-leaning communities in the Midwest, such as in northern Minnesota, voting for President Donald Trump. 

The mining association attempted to clarify the record in the online exchange “Misleading statement. You’re referring to the TRI- a program where permitted facilities report “releases” into contained and permitted sites. What this means is: when a truck hauls a bucketful of mineral rich dirt from one area to another, it’s called a “release” and must be reported.” 

Reamer’s response was to link an article from the publicly subsidized state radio network on the dispute between the Red Dog Mine and the EPA, including a settlement. 

Anyone who has worked in the resource industry in Alaska has had to experience the eye rolling faux outrage about “spills” on the North Slope (engine oil from a truck leaching onto an absorbent pad which must be classified as a spill) to the release of “toxic material.” What is profoundly enraging to the mining community when confronted with these types of attacks is not just their lack of truth (the Alaska mining sector is one of the safest in the world) but also the willful use of misinformation that was abetted by government and media officials. 

The sadness of this exhange is that there is a powerful story of the people in rural, predominantly Alaska Native northwest region, rising up and reducing poverty, child and adult mortality, and providing the dignity of multi-generational jobs. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s three daughters, who are Alaska Native, have worked at Red Dog. The environmental record for one of the largest zinc mines on earth has been a model the Alaska Miners Association holds for how to mitigate natural environmental contamination. But that story won’t be told. 

The Binkley family, which owns the ADN, are prominent supporters of mining projects. It is ironic that the in-house designated expert on Alaska’s past would use such blatant tactics from partisan opponents to make a snide point.

Readers to that publication should thus be prepared for a forthcoming story or perhaps a series from this individual on “the troubled history of mining in rural Alaska.”

Of course, expect the historic environmental remediation efforts, including making the Red Dog Creek, which was naturally toxic due to latent zinc levels now fit for fish to swim in, will be omitted. 

Suzanne Downing is the editor of Must Read Alaska. Her family arrived in Alaska in 1969 thanks to mining opportunities.

Downing: Education reform is worth fighting for

Alex Gimarc: In defense of Gov. Dunleavy’s fish farming initiative

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Alex Gimarc: In defense of Gov. Dunleavy’s fish farming initiative

By ALEX GIMARC

Governor Dunleavy rolled out a pair of bills, HB 111 and SB 108, advocating a change in state law currently prohibiting fish farming for fin fish in Alaska. The legislation is a decent first step toward building a fish farming industry here in Alaska.  

As currently written, the legislation prohibits fish farming for salmon, allows farming of private stocks for personal use, and requires secure containment, meaning onshore only in bodies of water not connected to any flowing water. The first farmed fish appears to be trout.  

The usual commfish suspects instantly came out in loud and vociferous opposition, including commenters on Must Read Alaska, viewing it as a threat to their livelihoods. In this, they are correct that there is a threat. They are incorrect that this legislation is the threat. Rather this legislation is the first step to a solution.

If the legislation is a solution, what is the problem? The problem is a stark economic reality as international fish farming today controls a growing 75%+ of the worldwide salmon market.  When Alaska prohibited fish farming in the state in 1990, fish farming was responsible for around 10% of all salmon sold worldwide. Alaska was the dominant player and took this step to protect Alaska commercial fishermen (commfish) from this sort of competition.  

The problem with protectionism is the only thing it protects is success of the industry demanding it.  

Not only has the ban protected commfish from succeeding in the new marketplace, it has guaranteed they cannot even learn how to be competitive.  As such they are being ground into economic dust.  Their reaction over the last couple decades has been to engage in an increasingly bitter series of fights with other user groups for salmon to keep their failing business model afloat.

Today, we are faced with a statewide failure of king runs, shrinking weights of fish caught, and disappearance of wild stocks of coho, chum and reds in Prince William Sound. Most of this is blamed on the yearly dump of a couple billion pink salmon fry from Prince William Sound commercial hatcheries.  It appears that the pinks outcompete wild fish for available food in the North Pacific.  In recent years, we have seen a couple mass die-offs of sea birds that eat what the salmon do.  

Craig Medred is the best writer in the state on this mess. He would be a good follow on the subject.

What additional threats other than shrinking fish, disappearing kings and other wild salmon species do we have?  What does the future hold?  

Somewhere along the line, the greens are going to claim a king salmon run into a particular drainage is an endangered species and the feds are going to agree with them. This will be done by playing the subspecies game they have played so well with Cook Inlet beluga and polar bears. 

When that happens, US Fish and Wildlife Service will list kings in that drainage as endangered and shut down fishing in and into that drainage for everyone.  This probably won’t happen under this president, but it is coming. When it does, commfish operating there will go the way of the MatSu and Kenai River king guides, into economic oblivion.   

Recent taste tests between farmed and wild salmon have found no difference in consumer appreciation. If the farmed product tastes just as good, is more abundant and cheaper, it will it continue to improve in sales, ramping up the economic pressure on Alaska commercial fishermen.

Fish farming offers a way out of this, as Alaska is a big place with lots of shoreline to place onshore and offshore fish farming systems. An incremental move from the current state of affairs to a growing salmon farming industry ought to be on the table.  Additionally, we need to take a look at in-river fish traps as a solution to sorting fish in mixed species fisheries while that transition is made.  

Failure to do this, or to even look at it will doom salmon runs in Alaska to the same destruction already visited on king runs statewide.  Once those runs dwindle to the point where commfish no longer has the political clout they currently enjoy, that clout and their businesses will disappear, and nobody else will care, as everyone else will have lost the ability to dip a hook or a dipnet chasing salmon.  

This is important. We need to do it. At a very minimum, we need to have the discussion, something we are not seeing out of Senator Stevens commfish working group which seems poised to continue doing what we are currently doing expecting different results.  

My final point would be Gov. Dunleavy’s rollout of this. This rollout, not unlike his rollout of a reasonable and exciting proposal for casino gambling several years ago, could have been done better. Remember, we have undergone a decades long blizzard of commfish good, farmed fish bad propaganda and brainwashing. 

Sadly, that brainwashing has worked very well for everything other than the fish, which are being destroyed.  Somewhere along the line, early on, you need to address the brainwashing.  

That wasn’t done this time around and may be enough to kill this proposal. Next time, though we might have an actual discussion.Progress. 

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.

Dunleavy introduces fish farming legislation
Speaker Edgmon, Rep. Stutes issue statement against Dunleavy’s fish farm bill

Linda Boyle: 10 fast facts about the bird flu virus

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Linda Boyle: 10 fast facts about the bird flu virus

By LINDA BOYLE

1. The bird flu virus has been around since 1878. It was first seen in northern Italy, called at the time “fowl plague,” a contagious disease in poultry with high mortality rates in domestic poultry. Some strains of avian influenza viruses such as H5N1 and H7N9 can also infect humans. 

2. Bird flu viruses are all variants of Influenza A viruses. They have been here for a long time—coming and going—and probably will be here forever. It wasn’t until the outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 that we knew they could affect humans also. Significant, however, is none has been shown to spread from human-to-human. And the deadly version has never circulated in our domestic animals. One Louisianan who died of it had co-morbidities. He acquired the virus from a wild bird in his backyard.

3. China is the source of the current bird flu epidemic. It originated in the intensive poultry farms in southern China and has spread to four continents. In 2021, 15.74 billion – yes, I said billion – poultry birds were culled in China. To meet consumer demand, China has large poultry factories that house over one million birds. Those cramped environments are perfect for virus replication and mutation.

4. Bird flu is currently transmitted to humans through working with domesticated poultry. The transmission occurs from exposure to saliva, mucous, or feces from infected birds. When in prolonged contact without proper protective gear, you are at greater risk. 

5. The number of cases of bird flu in the US population is relatively low, with most of the confirmed cases among poultry workers. Dairy cows have also been infected.  Here are the numbers:

6. Outbreaks of bird flu in the US include:  

1983-85 – H5N2 outbreak in the US that led to the killing of over 17 million birds. 

2014-15 – H5N2 outbreak in the US that led to the killing of 50 million birds.  

2022 until now– H5N2 outbreak in the US that led to the killing of 166 million birds and still counting. 

7. Wild birds are migratory and therefore carry the virus throughout the world. It doesn’t matter how many domestic birds you kill. However, the killing of those domestic birds has been actually profitable for the poultry farmers.  

8. Because so many laying hens have been killed, the price of eggs has skyrocketed by more than 50% from a year ago. Stores are restricting the number of eggs you can buy, much like the hand sanitizer was restricted during early Covid. To help consumers, the federal government is going to purchase eggs from other nations as part of its strategy, “backed by $1 billion in funding, to combat a strain of avian influenza that hit in late 2021” with “another $500 million in funding for biosecurity measures, $400 million in relief for impacted farmers and $100 million for vaccine research, the USDA said.”

9. People wonder if it is safe to eat poultry, eggs and beef. Currently, experts say it’s highly unlikely that someone would contract bird flu by eating contaminated food. Many safeguards are in place to prevent one from obtaining contaminated food. Normal cooking temperatures would destroy the virus.

10. The government is pushing ahead with developing a bird flu vaccine for birds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave Zoetis a conditional license for a bird flu vaccine for chickens.That doesn’t mean it was approved for use; it is merely in the testing phase. Conditional approval is different than full approval. For full approval, the drug company must show substantial evidence the drug is effective. For conditional approval, the drug company only needs to demonstrate the drug has reasonable expectation of effectiveness.

How U.S. Taxpayers Bailed Out the Poultry Industry, and Helped Entrench Avian Flu

There you have the facts. 

I know it will come as a shock to you, but already articles are being written on how safety measures need to be put in place to mitigate the spread. Seqirus  announced in May it was awarded a bid from the Department of Health and Human Services to create almost 5 million doses of a bird flu vaccine to prepare for a pandemic.

Go back to the statistics.  

  • Seventy cases and one human death. 
  • No transmission human-to-human.  

Stop using fear mongering to take my freedom, scare me, and force compliance. Enjoy your chicken wings!

Linda Boyle, RN, MSN, DM, was formerly the chief nurse for the 3rd Medical Group, JBER, and was the interim director of the Alaska VA. Most recently, she served as Director for Central Alabama VA Healthcare System. She is the director of the Alaska Covid Alliance/Alaskans 4 Personal Freedom.

Linda Boyle: DOGE puts stop to the fawning Fauci museum exhibit that taxpayers would have paid for
Linda Boyle: Covid ‘conspiracy theorists’ vindicated

Yundt Tax illustrates economic fundamentals: If you want less of something, tax it

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Yundt Tax illustrates economic fundamentals: If you want less of something, tax it

By DAN FAGAN

Credit freshman Republican State Sen. Rob Yundt on his ability to make a splash in the political world. Here’s what he posted about Must Read Alaska editor Suzanne Downing. 

“Poor Suzanne, I’m afraid if brains were dynamite she wouldn’t have enough to blow a fart.” 

Yundt is apparently angry with Downing for reporting on his proposed sizable tax increase on oil and gas company Hilcorp. Hilcorp is taxed differently than Exxon or ConocoPhillips because it is an S corps company. Yundt calls the discrepancy crony capitalism. But the way the state taxes S corps has been in place long before Hilcorp invested in Alaska. 

In 1980, Alaska ended income tax for individuals and privately owned S corps. ConocoPhillips and Exxon are publicly traded unlike Hilcorp. 

Yundt calls the S corps tax a loophole. But it isn’t a loophole. It’s the law and has been for 45-years. 

Sen. Rob Yundt starts his legislative career by introducing a new tax on oil

When BP pulled out of the state choosing to invest in other parts of the world, no publicly traded companies showed interest in taking the oil giant’s place in Alaska. 

But Hilcorp stepped up and made a $6 billion investment in Alaska. The company invested in Cook Inlet, Point Thompson, and even became the operating partner on the North Slope. 

Unlike publicly traded companies like ConocoPhillips or Exxon, Hilcorp couldn’t just sell stock to raise capital. It had to go out and borrow the money to invest in Alaska. 

Hilcorp’s decision to do so no doubt made economic sense because of Alaska’s 35-year tax structure governing income of S corps. 

Robert Seitz: ‘Yundt Tax’ won’t help oil production

At the time of the transition from BP to Hilcorp, critics were concerned the state would lose out on revenue. But the opposite happened. Hilcorp’s increased investment and resulting production meant extra state revenue, even more than had BP not left Alaska. That’s based on the state’s own forecast. 

In fact ConocoPhillips and Exxon benefit from Hilcorp’s increased investment since the company is the operator on the North Slope. It means more oil down the pipeline which is a win, win, for the oil companies, the state, and the Alaska Permanent Fund. 

Hilcorp’s increased investment has tripled production from 17,000 barrels a day to 50,000 in the past ten years at the North Slope’s Milne Point unit.  

Hilcorp predicts it will increase North Slope production by 10% in the next five years if the tax structure remains steady. 

Yundt’s tax raising bill will no doubt lead to a short term gain for an already morbidly obese Alaska state government. But it’s not a wise long term play. 

Raising taxes on Hilcorp will force the company to pull back on investment in Alaska. It’s a perfect example of the fundamental economic principle: If you want less of something tax it more. 

Yundt seemed to understand this during his campaign arguing on his website new taxes “stifle economic growth.”  

“Alaska’s focus should be on reducing or at the very least capping state spending while at the same time nurturing economic expansion through responsible resource development, technological innovation & reducing the many bureaucratic hurdles slowing private enterprises.”  

Yundt’s tax bill mirrors serial oil tax raiser Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski’s. It’s likely Wielechowski influenced Yundt to follow in his tax raising ways. 

Sources say Yundt blindsided his fellow conservative minority senate caucus members with his tax raising bill and has badly damaged his credibility with them. 

Will Yundt now leave the caucus and follow the path of Sen. Cathy Giessel and other Republicans and join with Democrats? 

At least one House district Republican committee (District 28) that Yundt represents in the Senate has now passed a resolution calling for the senator to withdraw his tax raising bill. 

Voters in Yundt’s mostly conservative district must wonder if he lied in his anti-tax campaign, or once he got to Juneau, he was fooled by the predominate capital city narrative that argues for transferring even more money out of an ever shrinking private sector into and ever growing state government. 

Either way, Yundt will have to do some serious repair work with conservatives. Especially after his crude insult of one of our most formidable and admired heroes, Suzanne Downing.  

Dan Fagan hosts a morning drive radio talk show weekdays on KVNT found at 1020AM 92.5FM and 104.5FM. The broadcast is also streamed on 1020KVNT.com.

Dan Fagan: Democrats and their allies are cooking up a showdown with Gov. Dunleavy

Alaska’s budget rock star Donna Arduin leaves legislative post for Trump appointment. What will she do?

Suzanne Downing
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Alaska’s budget rock star Donna Arduin leaves legislative post for Trump appointment. What will she do?

The Alaska Republican House minority is losing one of its top budget gurus to President Donald Trump.

Donna Arduin Kauranen, who came to Alaska as the first director of the Office of Management and Budget for Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and then worked as a legislative aide for two House members, is heading to Washington, D.C. to help salvage a dying institution.

Arduin will be the chief financial officer of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, starting next week.

Arduin was deputy budget director under New York Gov. George Pataki, was budget director for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and later for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and was CFO for Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, before serving for Gov. Dunleavy briefly, starting in 2019. She then was tapped to be legislative aide to Rep. Ben Carpenter and most recently for Rep. Frank Tomaszewski.

The American Legislative Exchange Council describes her as “one of the nation’s most successful veterans of state budget management and tax reform.”

Arduin is a paid member of the board of directors of the GEO Group, a publicly traded company that operates residential centers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and she’s been recently been named chair of the Audit and Finance Committee and the Corporate Planning Committee. She is also a member of the Nominating Committee, Corporate Governance Committee and a couple of other committees that oversee the company business.

With all those responsibilities, she said she will have to leave Alaska for a while, after splitting her time between Juneau and Northern Michigan for the past several years.

Arduin will have her work cut out for her at the Kennedy Center. In February, Richard Grenell, the newly appointed president of the Kennedy Center, revealed that CFO Stacey Johnson said the center had no cash on hand or even in reserves. Johnson’s bio refers to Stacey as a “they/them,” an indication of what has happened at the Kennedy Center, where the Biden Administration allowed gender politics to rule.

Grenell said that the center was using its debt reserves and that deferred maintenance are at a crisis level.

The new team taking over the Kennedy Center will be in turnaround mode, trying to salvage a failing institution that was run by Biden’s gender-obsessed ideologues.

Earlier this month, President Trump ousted David Rubenstein as the Kennedy Center Board chairman and replaced the president of the organization that has drifted into woke ideology, and now near financial ruin.

Trump gives David Rubenstein the hook from Kennedy Center for Performing Arts

Arduin is a graduate of Duke University with honors in economics and public policy. She worked at investment banks in New York and Tokyo before entering the public sector. In recent years, she became the president of Arduin, Laffer, and Moore Econometrics, which advises federal, state, and municipal leaders, candidates, and private sector clients on economic, fiscal and state policies.


Out of her league: Giessel clutches pearls as she blames Trump for imaginary Medicaid cuts

Suzanne Downing
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Out of her league: Giessel clutches pearls as she blames Trump for imaginary Medicaid cuts

Sen. Cathy Giessel of south Anchorage was channeling the talking points of the Democrats on Wednesday, but they were purely guesswork points, as she attempted to weaponize the federal budget process against Republicans and, specifically, President Donald Trump and the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Giessel, a Republican who has turned on her party, said on the Senate floor that the Trump tax cut would mean $880 billion in cuts to the federal budget and that the only place that could come from is Medicaid.

One third of Alaskans are on Medicaid, she noted, warning that Trump and the Republicans from the House of Representatives are preparing to gut the program that pays the medical bills of the poor.

But Giessel was wrong and the budget process in the House has no actual cuts to Medicaid. It simply has a work requirement. Hear House Speaker Mike Johnson describe the work requirement in this clip:

The budget resolution passed by the House does not cut Medicaid or Medicare. However, it does set spending levels for congressional committees, and that includes the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees Medicaid.  The resolution has $2 trillion in federal spending cuts, with $880 billion coming from the Energy and Commerce Committee. House Republicans call for cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.

In Alaska, there is a lot of known waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid. Native health organizations bill Medicaid three times what other providers are allowed to bill, and are setting up clinics and buying up hospitals across the state, competing with existing hospitals, with three times the federal income coming in. It’s a little-discussed racket in Alaska, only whispered about by the health community. In some communities, such as Cordova and Fairbanks, the Native centers have been set up practically across the street from other general care centers, and they are poaching non-Native clients from the existing clinics and hospitals, which allow them to bill three times the usual Medicaid rate. It’s happening all across Alaska, as the Native hospitals have found a profit center in Medicaid.

That issue is not addressed by the current reconciliation process, but many in the Alaska medical community wish it would be.

A recent poll by Rasmussen Reports shows that 71% of voters support reducing growth of Medicaid spending by removing illegal immigrants and requiring able-bodied recipients to work. Fully 88% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats back the proposal.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski also weighed in on the House process:

“I’m glad to see Speaker Johnson definitively rule out per capita caps on Medicaid. One in every three Alaskans is insured through Medicaid, and per capita caps would be devastating to states like Alaska, shifting untenable costs to our state that would inevitably result in loss of coverage,” she wrote, not acknowledging the waste, fraud, and abuse in the program, particularly in Alaska.

Michael Tavoliero: What happened to Sen. Rob Yundt?

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Michael Tavoliero: What happened to Sen. Rob Yundt?

By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO

In a recent Facebook comment, newly installed Senator Rob Yundt (R) responded to Suzanne Downing’s Must Read Alaska, “Camel’s nose: Alaska Senate Democrat majority has a surprise tax package to raise cash for state spending”, Feb. 26, 2025, as follows:

“Poor Suzanne, I’m afraid if brains were dynamite she wouldn’t have enough to blow a fart.

“It’s not conservative to have a tax environment that treats one company substantially better than the rest in the same industry. That’s called crony capitalism. It’s also not conservative to allow 743K Alaskan residents to get short changed because of a loophole that was accidentally created nearly 50 years ago. So far that loophole is $732 per resident & will be approximately another $179 per resident next year. It’s hard to fix the PFD if we’re giving our natural resources away at a large discount.

“This subject has been discussed in this building for at least 4 years (picture attached). It’s time to close the damn loophole & stop letting Alaskan residents get ripped off. Nothing more, nothing less. 

“My cell phone is still the same. 907-232-8340, if anyone has any questions give me a call anytime.”

A quick reminder to anyone paying attention. Candidate Yundt’s campaign promise of Feb. 19, 2024, stated his intentions of “Expanding our state economy through responsible mining/timber development so we’re not solely dependent on oil revenue.”

Camel’s nose: Alaska Senate Democrat majority has a surprise tax package to raise cash for state spending

Even more fascinating, candidate Yundt’s campaign promises contain the typical political spectrum of promises for family bonding improvements, municipality land rights, timber harvesting growth, school choice, election integrity and a better Alaska for seniors. Nope, nothing on a new tax or closing that nasty loophole.

Sen. Yundt’s SB 92 surprised most of us conservatives.

Sen. Rob Yundt starts his legislative career by introducing a new tax on oil

Sen. Yundt’s response is a perfect illustration of why Alaska’s government spending problem continues unchecked. Rather than addressing the real issue of bloated bureaucracy, he’s engaging in petty insults and political distractions emblematic of the boring and stupid junior high school insults the public has seen for more than a decade from state democrats and RINOs.

On March 25, 2024, candidate Yundt wrote, “Instead of burdening Alaskans with more taxes, policymakers should prioritize investing in infrastructure, mineral development & reducing red tape. By staying true to our values of personal freedom & self-determination, Alaska can chart a course towards a vibrant & resilient economy for generations to come.”

Senator Yundt’s FB condescending response to criticism, laced with juvenile insults, does not hide the fact that his bill is just another attempt to increase government revenue instead of reforming spending. His so-called “conservative” tax proposal targeting one company—Hilcorp—reveals that Alaska’s elected officials are more interested in shifting tax burdens than making the state’s bloated budget more efficient.

This is not a principled stand against crony capitalism; it is selective taxation designed to generate more state revenue under the guise of fairness. Yundt’s bill aligns perfectly with the broader Democrat-led push to impose new taxes on businesses, including SB 112 (targeting oil production) and SB 113 (taxing out-of-state digital commerce).

Alaska does not have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.

The unelected state bureaucracy treats fiscal responsibility as an optional suggestion, burning through taxpayer dollars with little accountability. Instead of tackling this, Yundt is focused on closing a tax “loophole” that has existed for nearly 50 years—all while ignoring the far larger and more urgent issue of out-of-control state spending.

Instead of addressing that reality, politicians like Senator Rob Yundt and his Democratic allies are proposing new tax schemes to squeeze more money from businesses and residents—without any plan to curb the out-of-control bureaucratic machine that continues to waste taxpayer dollars.

It’s particularly revealing that his approach to debate is condescension rather than substance. Instead of offering meaningful reforms to cut government waste, reduce inefficiencies, or demand accountability from the entrenched deep state, which appeared as many of his campaign promises, he lied and is now pushing for new taxes under the guise of “fairness.” It’s the same old big-government playbook: when politicians refuse to cut spending, they look for new ways to take more from the private sector.

If Yundt were truly interested in fixing Alaska’s financial problems, he’d be focused on reducing the cost of government, not inventing new ways to extract more money from the economy. Instead, he’s playing into the hands of the bureaucratic machine that believes it is entitled to Alaskans’ wealth, rather than accountable to them.

Robert Seitz: ‘Yundt Tax’ won’t help oil production

And his flippant, unprofessional remarks don’t just expose his arrogance, they reveal his complete unwillingness to engage in a serious conversation about fiscal responsibility. If Alaska’s newest Republican senator thinks insults are a substitute for leadership, then Alaskans should take note of exactly who he serves: the bureaucracy, not the people.

Meanwhile, Sen. Cathy Giessel has taken tax advocacy to a bizarre new level—claiming that without tax hikes, more Alaskans will commit suicide. According to this logic, taxation is now a public health initiative, and the only way to prevent despair is by ensuring more money flows into government coffers. The absurdity of this claim underscores just how out of touch Alaska’s ruling class has become.

Giessel doubles down: To avoid suicides in Alaska, there will be taxes and no Permanent Fund dividend

The real issue isn’t tax loopholes or a lack of revenue. It’s the unchecked expansion of government. Alaska’s unelected bureaucracy, operating without meaningful fiscal restraint, continues to expand, consuming more taxpayer dollars while demanding even greater contributions from the private sector. Meanwhile, these same bureaucratic interests legally funnel a portion of their gains into campaign contributions, effectively bribing state legislators to maintain the status quo. 

Alaska has enjoyed 11 years of tax stability, which has led to major investments in oil production—such as Willow and Pikka, expected to increase production by 30% by 2032. Yet, these new revenue bills threaten to destabilize that progress. SB 112 proposes altering per-barrel oil production tax credits, clawing back deductions that have incentivized investment. It even introduces an investment match requirement, where the government—not businesses—determines whether investments are “worthy” of tax deductions. This is nothing more than state-controlled resource management, a strategy proven time and again to reduce investment and lower long-term tax revenue.

SB 113, on the other hand, is a cash grab disguised as fairness. It seeks to tax digital commerce on out-of-state corporations that do business in Alaska, a move that will ultimately be passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices. Supporters claim it will raise up to $65 million annually, but such estimates are always optimistically inflated, and the broader impact of discouraging business growth and raising costs on Alaskans is ignored.

The bottom line is this: Alaska’s government is addicted to spending, and rather than cutting waste, it is looking for new ways to extract more money from businesses and residents. Yundt’s bill, Giessel’s bizarre reasoning, and Wielechowski’s tax proposals are all part of the same strategy: demand more revenue while refusing to address bureaucratic inefficiency and overspending.

Instead of confronting this reckless spending, Senator Yundt and his colleagues are doubling down on policies that stifle economic growth, deter investment, and push businesses out of the state.

If Alaska’s legislators were truly committed to fixing the state’s finances, they would follow the example set by the Trump administration—cut government bloat, eliminate wasteful agencies, and hold the unelected bureaucracy accountable. Instead, they are doubling down on the same failed policies, not because they believe in responsible governance, but because their real priority is protecting the power and job security of Alaska’s entrenched bureaucratic elite. This isn’t about fiscal responsibility—it’s about keeping the political machine well-fed at the expense of hardworking Alaskans.

Michael Tavoliero writes for Must Read Alaska.

Michael Tavoliero: Let’s stop playing colony and become the state we were supposed to be

David Eastman: Legislators crossed the line in passing Senate Bill 189

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David Eastman: Legislators crossed the line in passing Senate Bill 189

“Neither in this or any other issue can the Constitution protect us if we don’t protect the Constitution.” – Thomas Sowell

By DAVID EASTMAN

Senate Bill 189 is clearly unconstitutional. Even so, that didn’t stop 50 legislators (24 of them Republican) from voting to pass it in Juneau last session. Let that sink in for a moment. More than 80% of legislators (more than 70% of Republican legislators) publicly voted to pass a bill that they knew was clearly unconstitutional.

When legislators were debating the bill, SB189’s supporters didn’t even try to defend its constitutionality. When I stood up in the House immediately before the vote, and placed on the record the fact that SB189 was an illegal bill, the response was complete silence.

When Senator Stedman stood up in the Senate immediately before the vote, and explained that SB189 was a blatant violation of the Alaska Constitution, and that it didn’t pass the red face test, the response in the Senate was complete silence.

SB189 was such an affront to the Constitution that Senators Stedman and Hoffman refused to vote either yea or nay when it first came up for a vote.

When the attorney general analyzed the bill, the Department of Law pulled no punches in saying “we believe that [SB189] is unconstitutional because it violates art. II, sec. 13 of the Alaska Constitution.”

SB189 was such a clear violation of the Constitution that the governor refused to sign it, opting instead to allow it to go into law without his signature. In short, SB189 is a travesty.

The Alaska Constitution requires that every piece of legislation be confined to one subject. SB189 addresses at least half a dozen subjects, ranging from marijuana policy, to child care, to hunting moose and caribou.

State law requires that every piece of legislation extending the life of a state board or commission be confined to a single board (AS 44.66.050(e)). SB189 extends the life of no less than four separate state boards and commissions (e.g. The Marijuana Control Board, The Board of Massage Therapists, The Big Game Commercial Services Board, and the Alaska Commission on Aging).

State law guarantees that the public be afforded the right to publicly testify in the House and Senate whenever the extension of a state board or commission is being considered by the legislature (AS 44.66.050(a)). House legislators refused to allow public testimony on SB189.

Article II, Section 12, of the Alaska Constitution requires that the process of passing laws be governed by the same set of written rules in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate. These rules explicitly prohibit legislators from combining or fundamentally altering bills after they have already been passed by the House or the Senate (see Rules 24, 35, 41, and 42). After the Senate passed SB189, legislators in the House abandoned the legislative process, along with the public transparency it requires, in order to stuff five additional bills into SB189. In the end, SB189 was actually six different bills (SB189, SB182, SB228, SB234, HB396, and HB89).

Those at Alaska’s Constitutional Convention in 1956 were all too familiar with the practice of stuffing one bill inside another bill in order to get questionable policies through the legislature. To prevent this, they explicitly denied legislators the power to combine bills on different subjects into a single piece of legislation (See Page 1746, Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention). Combining bills on different subjects violates the right of legislators to vote on each individual bill, violates the right of citizens to know how their legislators have voted, and violates the right of the governor to choose whether or not to veto each bill.

The Alaska Constitution (Article II, Section 13) also requires that the “subject of each bill shall be expressed in the title.” Even the travesty that was the SB91 catch-and-release crime bill, with an utterly indefensible title that was 167 words long, has a greater claim to being constitutional than SB189, whose “title” clocks in at well over 200 words.

After the legislature passed SB189, as a mea culpa, legislators passed a non-binding resolution (HCR 23) to retroactively waive their earlier abandonment of the legislative process. Legislators in the House also inserted language into SB189 in an attempt to retroactively “exempt” themselves from the consequences of violating legislative oversight laws (AS 44.66.050).

At Thanksgiving, I filed suit against the legislature’s actions. In doing so, I have invited the court to either uphold the Constitution or join the other two branches of government in publicly acknowledging that this provision of our Constitution (Art. II, Sec. 13) has now given way to political considerations and will no longer be of any force or effect. You can read the lawsuit for yourself. It isn’t long.

Thomas Sowell, channeling James Madison before him, writes: “Neither in this or any other issue can the Constitution protect us if we don’t protect the Constitution. When all is said and done, the Constitution is a document, a piece of paper. If we don’t vote out of office, or impeach, those who violate the Constitution, or who refuse to enforce the law, the steady erosion of Constitutional protections will ultimately render it meaningless. Everything will just become a question of whose ox is gored and what is the political expediency of the moment.”

One of the things they don’t teach you in school is that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have both constitutional self-government and whatever policies are politically expedient at the moment. The very nature of constitutional government is to limit the power of government officials from doing things that are politically expedient; particularly legislators. When the unrelenting waves of political expediency crash into the Constitution’s firewalls there are only two possible outcomes; either those firewalls will be ably defended by the public, or the Constitution will give way to the ceaseless cries for legislators to go under it, or around it, or through it, on behalf of whatever political issue is popular in Juneau at the moment.

Lawmakers frequently pass bad bills, even unconstitutional ones, out of fear that they will be taken to task by the special interests in Juneau if they vote no. For this reason, special interests are often keen to marry up bad legislation with something popular. Instead of “lawmaker defends the constitution”, the headline will read “lawmaker opposes childcare tax credits” or “lawmaker opposes seniors” or “lawmaker opposes the PFD”. Don’t ask me how I know.

Fortunately, our system of government is designed to always allow members of the public to have the last word. Of course, the pertinent question isn’t whether members of the public value our rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. As children, most of us were taught to value these things. The question is whether members of the public value these things more than the temporary benefits that they and their favorite elected officials stand to gain if a portion of the Constitution is “temporarily” set aside.

As Sowell points outs, the Constitution cannot protect us if we do not protect the Constitution. The Senate handed us a perfectly constitutional bill on April 22nd, when it first passed SB189 and sent it to the House. On May 14th, House legislators voted (31-9) to stuff SB182, SB228, and SB234 into SB189. There were nine of us who initially objected to what was, at that point, a clear departure from state law. The next day, on May 15th, House legislators voted (38-2) to next add HB396 to SB189, and then voted (37-2) to also add HB89. Ultimately, this transformed SB189 from a two sentence bill (as passed by the Senate), into a 32-page, unconstitutional monstrosity that sought to change state laws on everything from tax credits, to big game hunts, to childcare and marijuana.

As the only member of the Alaska House of Representatives to consistently vote against the unconstitutional provisions of SB189, it fell to me to file the lawsuit. Either we maintain a plain reading of the Alaska Constitution or brazenly unconstitutional bills like SB189 will become the new normal in Juneau going forward.

Predictably, the ADN responded to the lawsuit with the headline: “Wasilla lawmaker challenges child care tax credit…”. This is the way the game is played today. In truth, some of the bills that ultimately became part of SB189 represent good policy. Some of those bills I publicly campaigned for as a legislator and continue to support. I hope they pass in the current legislature. However, they must be passed constitutionally like every other bill. The mischief waiting to be unleashed if Alaskans ultimately abandon these constitutional safeguards can hardly be put into words.

If, as Sowell warns, the defense of our constitutional rights simply becomes “a question of whose ox is gored and what is the political expediency of the moment”, then the only thing protecting our rights as Alaskans will be whether honoring those rights happens to be considered politically expedient in Juneau at that particular moment in time. I shudder to think what rights and freedoms Alaskans stand to lose if that ultimately becomes the case.

We saw what happened when it stopped being politically expedient to honor the PFD in Juneau. Are we willing to see legislators treat portions of our Constitution the same way? Each of us have a choice to make. By opposing unconstitutional bills like SB189 at every step of the way, I have made mine.

David Eastman is a former House representative for Wasilla.

Eastman v Dunleavy and State of AlaskaDownload
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