HERE WE GO AGAIN

The state has expended public funds to produce and mail a slick brochure to every Alaskan and their half-brother touting the administration's position on oil taxes and the proposed gas pipeline contract. I address here, not the merits of the two issues of oil taxes and pipeline, but only the propriety of the brochure. I have a basic problem with using public funds to advocate for public proposals, whether it's the gas pipeline, the POMV, school bonds, or whatever.

Here we go again. Check out my blog of about April 26, 2004, which is a copy of my Letter to the Editor of the Anchorage Daily News on the same subject. To quote a small segment of that letter, "Wordmeister spinners can label it "educating" - but political campaigning by any other name is still political campaigning. Dress a pig in a tuxedo, and it’s still a pig."

According to today's Daily News, the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) says the brochure may be "legal." Well, I suppose that's good. But I'm tried of politicians resorting to technicalities of the law, while slaughtering the spirit of the law. Here we go again - again!

The administration and the legislature have conducted numerious committee hearings, and public forums throughtout the state, to "advertise" the gas pipeline proposal. Good. The more open the process the better. In addition, it's all over TV, the newspaper, talk radio, and when folks are gathered around the office water cooler, the subject probably also comes up. Methinks if governmental proposals need slick brochures to "sell the product," perhaps we need to look more closely at the products.