Sen. Cathy Giessel’s latest newsletter to her district talks about the need for more state revenue, and how that will have to come from Alaskans’ paychecks.
“Our traditional dependence on oil taxes to pay our bills doesn’t work anymore. Most of our funds come from the Permanent Fund earnings. Alaskans knew this would happen when they created the Permanent Fund in 1976. ‘New Revenue’ usually makes Alaskans think of personal income taxes. And that is in our future, without question,” she wrote.
Giessel, although once a fiscal conservative, joined the Democrat-led caucus in the Senate and has now flipped on every single conservative principle, including abortion.
Now, as she serves as chairwoman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, she is normalizing the concept that Alaskans will end up paying an income tax to the state. The income tax was eliminated in 1980, when royalties from oil started paying for state services, and the oil boom flow of money led to a growth in government.
No. They spend more on education and the results get worse. No. No. No.
We need to DOGE Alaskan government not find ways for them to spend more of our money funding things we don’t want. Enough already.
100% spot on comment. DOGE would have a field day uncovering all the wasteful spending & corruption in Alaskan government. A true forensic audit is long overdue.
What a worthless ‘fleck of dust’ on the ass of every hard-working Alaskan.
How about cutting back on the spending programs, you twit!
Suzanne Downing needs to add a like button or a thumbs up button 👍
If you knew it was going to happen then why did you spend it like drunken sailors?
Proposed sales tax in Anchorage. Proposed state income tax.
This will make the cost of living in Anchorage more expensive and a large population will move to another state in the lower 48.
We need to cleanup spending first. DOGE.
Income Tax is only an option after you gut the PFD and leave Alaskans with nothing.
The size of State Government needs to be cut, significantly.
You and a few others have no business representing anyone in Juneau.
Another backstabbing RINO whose sorry behind needs to be primaried out.
Just like any other hardcore addict, government is NEVER satisfied with the amount of money they steal from the taxpayers, and ALWAYS demands more. They are parasites who will suck the productive economy dry and dead in their lust for ever-more control and power.
I would say a lot more about this contemptible power-hungry sociopath of a politician, but Suzanne would surely not allow it to be posted.
With rank choice voting there is no ‘primary out’ anymore. This person got primaried out before RCV and then when RCV was law she got elected.
Giessel ardently wants to become governor. In that quest Giessel has no beliefs she is not willing to compromise to that end. In fact, none of us know what Giessel’s core beliefs are.
She will not be elected as Alaska’s governor.
She might be referring to reducing the Dividend as an income tax. THAT is the first tax we will pay.
Lord help us if they try a Dividend AND a Tax redistribution scheme
The Governor’s 10 year plan shows a deficit of $1.5 BILLION + or – for the foreseeable future..
We’ve allowed the Top 20% to avoid taxes by using the Permanent Fund to pay for government. We’ve destroyed the “North to the Future” dream for prosperity and replaced it with “Alaska, high costs that don’t pan out”.
We’ve allowed politicians to blow through $20 Billion, hijacked from the CBR &SBR savings accounts, well over $10 Billion in stolen PFDs since 2015. We have lunatics that today want to pass HB 69 which will cost an additional $1.4 BILLION within 3 years to our failed Public School system…which is on top of the $2.4 Billion or so we pay annually….. And then as if the opiate pipe dream hasn’t taken the legislative majorities far enough down the rabbit hole.. the master acid drippers have this psychedelic illusion of reinstating the Defined Benefits program for a public employees golden parachute retirement… Which we still owe $7.4 BILLION left over from the last time we had it, nearly 20 years ago….
What do the people get? Hmmm.. nothing new.. BUT we’re a few Billion behind in deferred maintenance… The lowest rankings possible for our public schools nationwide, a depleted Cook Inlet gas field begging for subsidized help from the State…. But the light at the legislative end of the financial tunnel is glowing brightly for the legislators savoring their 67% pay raise a year ago…
Someone kindly refill the pipe for them to pass around again….
This what happens when Alaska keeps electing Democrats like Governor Dunleavy
Giessel says a lot of things. Remember when she supported Fauci on the Covid shot and how we all needed that too. Well there is a lot of dead people that took the shot and a lot suffering from the shot.
Don’t believe a word she says. Whatever for the moment.
Another COMMUNIST offended at the very idea that Alaskans have some freedom while she wants to spend money on herself via her wealth transfer dreams that no one else wants.
I wont be paying state income tax . She can use her own money to fund her pet projects .
Income tax = slavery period .
Sorry, but there remains a H U G E question:
Are you still going to be mailing out cash to folks to buy drugs, alcohol, trips to Maui, toys, cheap Chinese junk, etc while initiating new taxes on the middle class?
Giessel is normalizing the concept that she is a leftist, and not a conservative of any kind. I’m certain at this point that many more democrats vote for her than Republicans.
We really need to do a total flush of our “Representatives” in Juneau….
We need to flush Juneau. It is a remote location dominated by government employees and lobbyists from down south. We should at least have our legislature meet in a neutral spot like Bethel or Kotzebue.
Of course it is. It’s money they don’t have, and people stupidly continue to elect the same set of clowns who got us here.
Notice how cutting a bloated and inefficient state government never crossed her mind?
Great then we can create another bureaucracy to collect the money. A sales tax is the only fare tax. Old Cathy the trader can taker her income tax and shove it.
DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING
I don’t mind paying taxes but you have to be able to collect it efficiently and it has to be fair. Basically what Cathy the traitor is saying is if you work your ass off then you get to pay more than the dead beat down the road that uses the exact same service as you. How equil is that. ??
Cost more to administer than would be collected even given an unreasonable taxing scale. All that would develop is a new staff and office.
Of course, the initial percent amount would be low. It would be the “Boil a Frog” process.
Politicians have never seen a tax proposal that they don’t salivate. I hear that tone in her presentation.
Cheers-Al Johnson-Ketchikan
Cathy reminds me of Lisa the traitor. I just want to puke when I see either one.
Let’s see if I get this right. The reason that AK does not have an income tax is due to the natural resources revenues (not just oil and gas) that are supposed to pay for a substantial portion of government services, but politicians over the past 50+ years have continuously taken steps to reduce (not grow) the income the state receives from its own natural resources, so that now the government needs to make up the difference by suggesting an income tax? I call that political self dealing and intellectually lazy on the part of politicians that are unable or unwilling to conceive of ways for the state to increase economic opportunities from its natural resources for it’s citizens and thus improve the receipts to the states coffers.
Exactly.
Of course she does!! She will SPEND! To make sure of it
How ‘bout an “inevitable” spending cut?!?!
The corrupt (U) uni-party can do whatever they want, they killed the Alaskan GOP. Why is the “Alaskan GOP” quiet, did they surrender to the union controlled democrats? We are going to be the big losers with the corrupt legislators in Juneau. Mark my words!
Mike Shower needs to be our next governor. Then we need Alaska DOGE and no RCV to purge the RINOs. No income tax needed!
When this was brought up last time it was projected to generate between $200-300 million dollars per year. That doesn’t hardly make a dent in the current years budget, let alone all of the spending that they are looking at this year and each subsequent year.
How about having Musk come up and do an audit and seeing where the money is going or not going . One thing for sure is our state government is horribly run . Education is in a free fall and spending more and more funds for less students and failing grades .
She will never make it to the Governor’s Office. I told her that before I left the house.
Giessel the old weasel. Another born and raised Catholic girl who likes to kill babies. And at one time she was even a nurse. Liberalism is a mental disorder. And Giessel is really affected.
Ah Senator Giessel, she who speaks with forked tongue.
On the one hand she is trying to sell us that the state can afford not only the gold plated defined benefits plan for state employees, to say nothing about the perpetual BSA increase just passed out of committee in the house.
Yet on the other hand she claims that our natural resources are diminishing and Alaskans will need to pay for government without that resource revenue.
Well Senator here are two observations:
1) If we are truly in such dire circumstances shouldn’t you as our elected leader and your compatriots in Juneau make every effort to reduce the size and financial demands of government? Cut costs? Cut staff? Focus on essential and constitutionally required tasks?
2) There is no way on God’s green earth that working Alaskans can generate enough income to provide enough taxes to cover the billions and billions the state spends every year.
This in my opinion is another ploy to bamboozle Alaskans into turning over the corpus to the legislature.
If they cant make do with money from natural resources they sure as hell cant make it work with taxes. Shameful to even float the idea
I guess Cathy Giessel wants an income tax to pay for the 1/2 billion $$$ increase going to K12 employees. That works for them-they get a salary increase and then can afford to pay the income tax!
IDEA: How about cutting State spending?
Pray for Giessel!!! We grew up in church with them. They were super normal, traditional, and conservative.
Who knows what happened?
Term limits would stop the dirty theft of our rights, property and money !!! flush the toilet’s and get it to stop the stinking 👨🏻💻
I have a hard time with the scenario where I am receiving a pfd and paying an income tax. Unfortunately the law of gravity kicks in after you have forgotten all about it. I imagine that’s why Buffet is accumulating a record amount of cash.
In Alaska, there are approximately 450,000 potential income taxpayers. If every Alaskan paid $2,000.00 in income tax a year and got zero money back on a tax return, it would equal $900 million. The current deficit is $1.7 billion. They would still have to take the PFD to cover that shortfall. That’s just how far out there they really are.
Also, let me add this: last year, of all the money the state spent, 57.4% was federal money — yes, TAX dollars. Of the remaining 42.6% of money spent, 55% of that came from savings. The rest was actual revenue.
For all of you out there who have run a business, listen to this: in the finance committee this year, they testified that the three largest sources of revenue in Alaska are:
Federal tax dollars
Savings account
Oil
We need oil to be around $90.00+ to balance the budget, with an average lift cost of $45.00 +/- $5.00 per barrel. With President Trump looking to lower the cost of energy ASAP, figure a $60.00 barrel market price. I predict they will spend us right into 75% or greater federal dependency, which is why I now say we have become a federal enclave. THEY OWN US!
So you see, a proposed income tax will do nothing but destroy what is left of the private sector. It equates to nothing more than redistribution and the same goes for the absolutely absurd idea from Rep. Yundt of a 9.4% tax. Corporations don’t pay taxes taxpayers and consumers do.
We need to put a 10-year moratorium on state growth, if not shrink it by about 40% or more, and allow the private sector to grow. We need to drop all the UN Net Zero globalist ideologies that have infected this state and get back to development. We need an executive with a rigid spine, willing to fight. And for the sake of God, we need to stop the flow of federal dollars into this state and we need about 58 new people in Juneau.
The Federalist had an article this week titled, “Meet The Group Writing The Blueprint For Dismantling Bureaucracy In Every Red State” by Shawn Fleetwood. I urge Alaskans to read it.
Texas has the same problem we do. I suspect other red states do as well. Next revolution needs to be ridding us of the rinos.
I’d rather be stabbed in the front by marxist dems then in the back by rinos.
Taking more from the people is always the only solution for government. It’s because they are too cowardly to stand up to our own bureaucrats and public employees and say no. Just easier and less controversial to dig deeper into our pockets. There’s actually two sides to a budget…revenue and expenses but politicians can only see the revenue side for some reason. Here’s a viable option…stop all welfare and stop all spending on illegals. Let’s see how much that will help out.
People who can leave will do it now, thus making the situation even worse. No way can such a small population cover those costs, especially for so many who live ‘off the land’ but while other Alaskans pay the price.
Senator Giessel is a realist, MRAK readers live in an alternate universe