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| Courtesy of Ron Niebrugge |
The voter’s suggested the job should take just a couple months, but with so much at stake the road traveled by this year’s legislative session isn’t coming to an end any time soon. Thursday, Governor Bill Walker announced that he will be calling a Fourth Session to convene October 23rd in Juneau.
In his statement, Walker suggested an agenda would be released on September 22nd that would be narrowing the focus on revenue.
A lot of discussion has revolved around re-instituting an income tax, an effort that wouldn’t capture revenue from visitors and wouldn’t be as oppressive to lower income Alaskans. The idea of taking a cut out of their paycheck at a time when the state is in recession has local residents shaking their head.
Senator Peter Micciche (R D-O): “When I was mayor of Soldotna we offset our tax burden on people from somewhere else. That is what I am interested in, if we do have to go to the revenue option.”
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| Senator Mia Costello |
Senator Mia Costello of Anchorage doesn’t see any efforts to increase the state’s revenue via an income tax being successful.
Senator Mia Costello (R D-K): “We put the income tax on the floor for a vote just to show that there isn’t support for it, so I don’t see that coming up.”
Walker feels that money has to be found somewhere to fill the projected $2.7 billion budget gap brought on by the continued low oil prices, which have pushed Alaska into a fiscal crisis and lingering recession – and that somewhere can’t be savings anymore as projects show that Alaska currently has less than one year’s worth of savings to fund essential state services like public education and public safety.
Story as aired on KSRM News:
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