Alaska is strange. They make so much money off oil and gas that they don’t need a state income tax. Instead, every citizen gets an annual stipend: this year it’s $1,654. Meanwhile, the rest of the state’s economy is basically run on federal subsidies.
Bob Kaufman, a Web tourism entrepreneur who moved to Anchorage as a venture capitalist, said that every one of a half-dozen businesses he researched for acquisition depended on a government subsidy for profitability.
“Most of the companies up here, I look at them and say, ‘I’m not as valuable as an owner up here, because I don’t have any buddies in politics,'” Kaufman said.
Yet, the state doesn’t show much appreciation for the federal government…go figure. The statehouse is a cesspool of corruption. Some of it is like a theatre of the absurd. Take this chesnut:
The probe has delivered low humor as well as bad behavior. In one exchange, the FBI captured by wiretap, Allen handed a sexual potency pill and a sleeping pill to Kott — who later phoned, confused and upset, after mixing them up.
It doesn’t say which pill he took. Did he want to know why he wasn’t sleepy but had a raging hard-on, or did want to know why his prick was limp and he couldn’t keep his eyes open?
Then there is this Big Lebowskiesque anecdote.
Former representative Tom Anderson last month was sentenced to five years for taking money from a consultant for a company hoping to build a prison in Alaska; the consultant was working undercover for the FBI. The Republican lawmaker’s only previous brush with the law came when his girlfriend, a fellow legislator, summoned police as they fought over bowling scores.
“Over The Line!!! Mark it zero, Dude.”
Maybe the Alaskans should consider whether Republicans are really the way to go. If not, they’re entering a world of pain.
