Joshua Bennett comments at the, The Party is Over for the Ice Arabs, post:
I have met and know several of the Alaskan legislators, they are seriously some of the most stupid people I have met. None of them could run a coffee stand and yet they think they can understand and run the Alaska economy. I've listened to them get asked pretty good questions on local talk shows, usually softball ones at that, and they just duh duh uh their way through their answers. These fools have blown more stolen loot on nothing than any fools I have heard of. The budget now is somewhere over $5 billion? Well the last couple years it's been over $8 billion. For a State with 700,000 people. The State, particularly agencies like the DOT, wastes so much money is laughable. Of course now they say "there is no way we can just cut our way out of this". Really? Don't spend any money and you will still be broke? This governor just hired 3 of his old buddies for over $100,000 a month each, but they can't cut their way out of this. This governor is a moron. Palin was a moron. Parnell was a moron. And every stinking legislator in Alaska is a moron. Someone should write a book on how a State can have a $42 billion dollar surplus fund and be broke in a couple years. I don't mind them being broke, in fact I think it's great. Except now of course they want to milk us cows dry. One good thing that could happen is a mass migration of folks out of Alaska. I can only hope.
I was a little peeved when I read the original article, and spouted off as such.
ReplyDeleteBut to be more fair, The Alaska State government spent $13 billion in 2012.
I don't mean to give drunken sailors a bad name, and I apologize for using them in this analogy, but the state of alaska spends money like drunken sailors, or drunken fisherman for a more real life Alaskan analogy.
A large portion of the waste is due to end of budget year spending. If it's not spent, you don't get it next year. This is where the DOT is culprit.
I am in the construction and transportation industry, so I have a special hate for them.
On a good note for us Alaskans, ConocoPhillips has decided to go forward with Greater Mooses Tooth 1, (GMT#1) and GMT#2. GMT1 is nearly a $1 billion project. Hilcorp is moving forward with their Milne point project, and wants to make a offshore island to drill for oil. This is a massive project, basically to succeed where Shell decided to quit because of the States regulation for offshore drilling. This has worked before, with Oooguruk Island, which I have as lucky enough to be apart of. I still get the shivers, driving 17 miles over the frozen ocean to the island, I remember one ice monitor dude that told me, don't worry, most of the water is only 30 feet deep. Haha.
Anyway, if the new governor doesn't screw it all up, the gasoline from Prudhoe to Kenia will be built. I have this from the word of several Exxon "big boys" who I have a contract with in the Pt. Thomson project. This is a $60 billion project, and the only way it can be shut down is from our current governor.
Parnell may have been bought and paid for by ConocoPhillips,(he was/is an employee) but at least his cronyism would have made $$ for the little guys.
This new governor is just pissed his project, which he spent 12 years of his life trying to implement, isn't happening. Cause his project is stupid. Just like he is.
Hope none of these individual actors read this blog, cause I will be out of business, and maybe floating under the Tanana river ice.
And that's no joke.