Protecting guns rights vital to Alaskans
By Representative Vic KohringMarch 15, 2006
Twenty-Five years ago, on March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot by a confused young man attempting to impress actress Jody Foster. Why murdering a president would impress Foster is one question apparently John Hinckley never asked himself. But Reagan not only forgave Hinckley, he never once brought up the issue of gun control.
To we Alaskans gun control is a favorite topic of discussion and the goal of many liberals in the Lower 48. We in the North know better. Guns are needed tools and secondly a source of sport.
Our progress in defense of the Second Amendment comes from a surprising individual, Democrat Representative Eric Croft. His legislation to eliminate concealed carry requirements, House Bill 102, was signed into law in 2004. We should thank him for both his perseverance and support of the right to keep and bear arms.
Which brings up an interesting question. Are you aware that a teenager growing up in America sees tens of thousands of rifle and pistol killings on TV by the time he or she is 16? And yet, not one in 100 is aware of the nation’s premier rifle and pistol competition at Camp Perry, Ohio held each year in August. Much of America’s media is so biased against guns and private ownership of weapons, that we are not told of all the peaceful and legitimate use of guns in our nation. With the exception of the History Channel and occasional specials on other channels, most young people think of guns as killing machines and only killing machines.
I admit that while I have hunted and enjoy “plinking” in the Valley, I too was unaware of the Camp Perry competition until I spoke with a friend of mine who told me his father had gone to Perry in his youth during the First World War. Was his father a good shot? My friend said his father missed out on being in the top 20 marksmen in the country because he “shot two bulls...but they were on my neighbor’s target so I was disallowed the points!” Interesting that my friend did not know of his father’s interest in shooting until he was 30 himself.
The next time you see some TV corporate bad guy using a gun to ventilate the innocent, remember there are many more acts of self-defense using a rifle or pistol. The media also largely refuses to cover rifle and pistol competitions.
You can see guns on the History Channel, read about them in NRA or other magazines. Why do you seldom read about them in the Seattle Times or the Anchorage Daily News? Perhaps it’s time to pressure these editors and insist they answer.
In the meantime enjoy your weapons. Teach your children how to use them safely. Teach them to be good shots and to know their legal bounds. Teach them to respect a gun’s power and abilities. Teach them to understand the Second Amendment, where it came from and why it’s so important. Enjoy competitive shooting sports. Alaska is the most beautiful state in the country and to be out in the field shooting with friends and family is heaven.
I believe President Reagan knew this. He was aware of all the positive aspects of owning and knowing how to use a rifle or pistol. He would never blame an inanimate object for what a thoughtless human being did.
That’s why I agree with the newly coined line “I would rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than driving with Ted Kennedy.”
Vic Kohring is a Republican and represents Wasilla and the Mat-Su in the Alaska State Legislature
Limit priorities to basics
By Rep. Vic Kohring
January 29, 2006
“The State is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”
-- Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
Bastiat’s dictum is astounding. Each year Juneau spends too much of other peoples’ money. Reversing this is my highest priority. We get into financial binds by creating “make work” programs, and then money runs out. In the nick of time we get an avalanche of new money (high oil prices), and a new round of profligate spending begins.
Our present abundance should pay off debts and be carefully spent on essentials: roads, schools, public protection. We should demand strict budget discipline. This isn’t attractive to most media, but private sector Alaskans understand.
Regarding the proposed gas line: Why is it private companies haven’t built one yet...especially with high gas prices? Do obstinate, impossibly cumbersome regulations, and unexpected government interventions and taxes sound familiar? Would you risk billions if you could not depend on known, clear conditions?
To build a gas line we must streamline regulations and limit taxes so business can proceed with certainty. If we keep taxes low and regulations clearly understood, then business will flourish and state coffers will wax rather than wane.
Our Valley’s roads and schools are the legitimate province of state stewardship. We’ve made certain that building new roads and schools have proceeded as the Valley grows. These are the basics and should be given their due. Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Knik Road need to be widened. Seward Meridian will be improved and extended to Seldon. A new Settler’s Bay elementary school is underway.
We would have plenty for basic, constitutional programs if we confined our effort to them instead of trying to please everyone with all things. One size fits all doesn’t work. Let’s go with what’s important and eliminate the fluff.
Representative Kohring is a six-term House member, and serves the Mat-Su in the Alaska Legislature
Budget Discipline Vital
By Representative Vic KohringJanuary 14, 2006
As the second session of the 24th Alaska Legislature begins here in Juneau, it’s appropriate to examine why we are here and what we can achieve for Alaskans. To merely state that the biggest issue facing us is overspending is to state the obvious. Let’s ask why and how this happens.
As legislators tend to their daily schedules, they are visited by legions of individuals and special interest groups. The vast majority of them want the Legislature to spend money on their particular program. Imagine the politician, even if he or she comes to the Legislature with a sincere limited government, spend less philosophy, is literally met and confronted on a daily basis by people who make loud and dramatic claims that if their needs are not met, it will be a great catastrophe and the legislator will probably lose his or her seat. The pressure is enormous. Few can resist.
So when I state with great certainty that we ought to use the large monetary income from recent high oil prices to take care of debt obligations and place the rest into our reserve accounts or the Permanent Fund as opposed to funding even more government, many will privately agree. But then the inevitable process of special interests’ pressure begins to take its toll. This has gone on year after year, to where we now we have the most inflated budget in our state’s history.
We rank as the highest spending state in the entire country. New Yorkers (represented by liberal Hillary Clinton) are taxed to an incredibly high per capita spending level. Oh woe on them. But Alaska outspends New York by three times!
We consume over $8 billion a year from our operating budget (mostly social programs and the bureaucracy to run them) in a state with a mere 700,000 people. Alaska has the dubious distinction of having the most exorbitant government of any state, spending more than entire countries in the world.
It’s my 12th session in Juneau. I have watched this process repeatedly an even dozen times. It’s time we acted rationally instead of emotionally. We should spend what we have more carefully and efficiently...on the limited government we ought to have...roads, police, fire protection and schools. We should wean ourselves from the soft, liberal, “feel good” programs that are not prescribed by our constitution.
With this common sense plea, to run government with an eye on constitutional restraint, and for courageously deleting the truly extraneous fat (government TV and Radio, tourism advertising, fish marketing, to name a few), we should move forward with developing important infrastructure.
To overcome the dramatic pleas of special interests is a long-term effort because each person’s program is practically of absolute life or death importance. Legislators are inundated all session long with this. I throw down the gauntlet to each of my colleagues. Can you resist?
I have and will resist. Please join me. With this in mind Alaskans would then be left in peace to spend more of their own money the way they want, not government. It’s theirs after all. They earned it.
Rep. Vic Kohring serves Wasilla and the Mat-Su in the Alaska State
Increase taxes on the oil industry? NO!
By Rep. Vic Kohring
March 2, 2004Some members of the Legislature are working hard to increase taxes on our Alaska oil industry to solve our fiscal crisis. Juneau has been drenched in money provided by the oil companies hard work on the North Slope for 30 years and now wants to “reward” the industry by taxing them to make up for its own ill-advised spending and unwillingness to live within its means.
Some in Juneau want even more money instead of balancing the state’s budget, as everyday Alaskans must do with their own personal budgets. We have had so much easy money for so long that we’re hooked on it like a drug. Instead of admitting to our errors and voting to make government smaller and more efficient, we want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, the oil industry.
Why would we want to penalize the very men and women who have given us Modern Alaska? Perhaps we’ve forgotten the enormous impact the oil industry has had on us? Before the days of Big Oil, our state got along on much less money, for example, $99 million in 1967. Since oil began flowing, the budget increased over 3000-fold! Oil money paid for new, exorbitantly expensive schools with large swimming pools, for performing arts centers and sports arenas, for a million and one programs that are now acting as weights drowning us in red ink.
A farsighted few predicted Juneau would be highly likely to blow easy money. So they created the Permanent Fund to funnel some oil money directly to the people as individuals. Now Juneau wants that too! But if Big Oil is taxed even more, the industry will be less inclined to continue producing or may even leave Alaska to find a more receptive climate for their talents and efforts.
Instead of taxing oil to an even greater degree, we should grant the industry tax credits and exemptions so it has a real economic stimulus to look for new oil and create even more wealth. If we don’t do this, companies may take their awesomely productive efforts to Siberia or Kuwait where they are more appreciated. Not only should we encourage additional exploration and production through low taxes, we should streamline the unreasonable paperwork and red tape demands. The Governor has taken lead on this, so I commend him. But more needs to be done. With an operating budget of over seven billion dollars a year (oil and federal dollars) and a legion of government workers, we have a target rich environment in which to choose areas to cut.
There are other reasons for not increasing taxes on our golden benefactors up north. One, is the regressive spending spiral would likely continue. If we do not reduce spending by eliminating useless and unconstitutional government programs, and we instead hike taxes on oil companies, if we make this mistake, Juneau will continue with wasteful spending for its special interests. In other words, it will be “business as usual” until next session when there is not enough to go around, once again. Following that, Juneau will likely turn on Alaskans with sales and income taxes.
I recommend we stand strong, vote unnecessary items out of existence and finance the fundamentals: schools, roads, police and justice. Most of the rest is not needed made possible only because we’ve had so much money given to us by Big Oil.Vic Kohring, a Republican, is Chairman of the Legislature’s Oil & Gas Committee
America moving in the wrong direction
By Rep. Vic Kohring
February 29, 2004America had a better system of government 100 years ago than it does today, and more importantly, a SMALLER government. If a person does a comparison, you might come to a quick conclusion that I’m right.
For example, a century ago we did not have the federal income tax. Prior to 1913, Americans were free of the grips of the IRS that now steals trillions of dollars annually from productive, hardworking American families, and re-distributes the wealth to literally thousands of social programs including billions in foreign aid. A century ago, the United States had absolutely ZERO national debt, now projected to be almost $3 trillion over the next 10 years.
A century ago, America had the largest middle class in the world and Moms could afford to stay at home and raise the kids (even up to the 1950’s, just before Lyndon Johnson’s disastrous and wasteful “War on Poverty”). A century ago, government (public) schools began to eat away at the highly successful private K-12 system that had standards equivalent to today’s universities. For proof of this, read one of the tests given to high school seniors at the turn of the 20th Century, and compare it to today’s 8th grade level graduating qualifying exam required of 12th graders (that many can’t even pass).
Another classic example is the Wright brothers of Dayton, Ohio, who gave us the modern world in the form of the airplane. They invented flight without one dime of government tax money while Professor Langley was miserably failing with huge government subsidies trying to create a flying machine of his own. The Wright’s built their own wind tunnel, figured out the best angles for wings and propellers, tested their work themselves and gave the world flight. The government took money and gave us nothing.
America in 2004 is a bountiful land with numerous technological marvels that have made our lives the best in history. Think how much better it would be if government did not interfere as much as it has over the last 100 years with horrendous taxation, tens of thousands of laws, rules, regulations and controls that restrict free enterprise and suppress people’s creativity and ingenuity. State Legislatures and Congress have simply been out of control since the Progressive Era.
Western states of Oregon, Washington, California and Alaska all are running Promethean deficits, because politicians cannot control their spending appetites. They squander like drunken sailors, unconcerned about tomorrow. Congress, the leader of this mess, is even worse. Led by the President, they have out spent every past administration in the history of the U.S. and are pushing us toward bankruptcy. Bush has not vetoed a single bill in over two years in office.
All the egregious things government does to us as a people, like the recent Patriot Act, have placed us further under the thumb of big government. Violations to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Amendments are yanking our freedoms out from beneath us. Yesterday in my office, a bureaucrat from the Federal Department of Transportation in Seattle stopped by to promote Alaska’s proposed seat belt law, giving cops more authority. While well meaning, he was unable to conceive that his work goes against the virtues of freedom and individual liberty, and places even more controls in the hands of government and the police. I can hear the ratchets moving slowly, methodically, monotonously and cruelly, depriving us of our freedoms.
2004 could have looked like what 2075 probably will. We would likely be much more advanced as a society if it weren’t for government interference. We probably would have a cure for cancer, colonized the planet Mars, human bodies that routinely live healthy well beyond 100 years, and a standard of living for everyone quadruple of what it currently is. All the various potential cures for diseases that have been sprouting up around the world are occurring much slower than they should. This has made patients, especially cancer patients, very angry and frustrated with the overly timid FDA.
If we extrapolate how fast we proceeded technologically from the 19th to the 20th Century, but then removed the huge government influence and control, we would have remained a true beacon and leader to the world as we were for our first century.
The West, especially the U.S., has advanced much further under Laissez Faire, where we went from an empty continent with covered wagons, to high tech 747’s in less than 100 years. This happened in a FREE society, not in places like Afghanistan or Bulgaria where no freedom exists. Take advanced medicine for example. Canada, with its vaunted socialized medicine, has proven to be a medical failure. Our neighbor has very few CAT Scans for diagnostic analysis. Yet across the border, 20 miles away in the small community of Bellingham, Washington, there are three. Because of government control, medicine has to be rationed in Canada and people stand in lines. That’s why they stream across the border into the U.S. to seek medical help.
The biggest problem over the last 100 years has been taxes. The following is a list of typical taxes, listed alphabetically, that most Americans are now subject to, making them much poorer at the expense of a big and wasteful government:
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
Car Rental Tax
CDL license Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Education Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax
Tobacco Tax
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-Recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Tire Tax
Trailer Registration Tax
Utilities Tax
Vehicle Registration Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Forty-seven total taxes! The important thing to note is that NONE of these existed 100 years ago (or if some did, they were so small that they were almost non existent). Yet our nation was by far the most prosperous in the world and the envy of everyone. Look at the millions who fled other countries and immigrated to America around the turn of the 20th Century seeking a better life. My family was a part of that, immigrating from Germany and Lithuania in the early 1900’s. Did they come here to be taxed? NO!Closer to home, look at what’s happening right here in Alaska. It’s obvious we haven’t learned from mistakes of the past, and unfortunately seem destined to repeat them. Last session, the Governor signed into law a host of new taxes, and called them “user fees.” The Anchorage Daily News has made fun of that and is right. The taxes were as follows:
Car Rental Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Tire Tax
Business License Fee (Tax) Increase
Vehicle Registration Fee (Tax) IncreaseThis is not the end of it. Taxes proposed this session include:
Income tax
Sales Tax
Education Tax
Tobacco Tax
Tourism TaxThese measures will slow the progress of our state and society by discouraging productivity, creativity and entrepreneurship. The real beneficiaries will be government bureaucrats and special interest groups, who will be handed money stolen from the public through the force of law.
Further, history has proven repeatedly that you can’t tax yourself into prosperity. The opposite occurs when taxes are CUT, proven in the early 1960’s and early 1980’s when our national economy boomed.
Why can’t bureaucrats look to Washington State and see how their government is starting to respond appropriately by encouraging private enterprise? Governor Gary Locke dramatized that the private sector works better than big government as he tried to get the Boeing 7E7 built in his state. He bent over backwards to free the company from excessive government controls and taxes. Boeing decided to build the 7E7 in Everett, Washington.
If it works at that level as Governor Locke has acknowledged, then why not expand the same concept everywhere else through all levels of government? If cutting taxes advances commerce, then why not cut taxes for everyone involved? Why can’t politicians see the principle involved here?
Vic Kohring, a Republican, represents Wasilla and the Mat-Su in the Alaska State Legislature.
The Politicians are Coming!
By Rep. Vic Kohring
January 16, 2004Once again, the Alaska Legislature has convened in Juneau with authority and control held in check partly by disagreement and contrary power grabs. This is the place where billions of your dollars are spent, given to “vital” state interests, with much wasted on the government bureaucracy.
One of the biggest issues looming before lawmakers this year is how to tax you anew and call it “contributions” or “user fees.” The assumption, placed in holy writ by the Anchorage Daily News and other Titans of liberalism, is that “state government has been cut deeply, that the things it does now are down to bare bones, stripped away to the leanest, most efficient crew possible. Therefore, since we have an obligation to meet nearly every social need out of compassionate caring for our fellow man, we have to find new ways of taking more of your hard earned money.”
This is a complete falsehood.
We have the largest state bureaucracy of all 50 states per capita. Government provides handsomely for an army of state workers 24,000 strong, to perform functions beyond what’s needed, putting us deeply in debt while depleting our savings. Thanks to past legislatures, government has engaged in “make work” jobs with a long series of functions that should have either remained private or not in existence at all. Within the last 25 years, a litany of prodigious projects like the Pt. McKenzie Dairy Project, the Delta Barley Project, the Seward Grain Terminal, the Healy Clean Coal Power Plant, and more recently, the Alaska Seafood Processing Plant, continue to be embarrassing failures.
These disasters have cost us millions of our dollars because they were risky projects mismanaged by bureaucrats who knew they could tap into an endless stream of free government money instead of operating on a profit and loss basis like real private enterprise.
For nine years now I’ve observed special interests talk about how important this or that government program is only to have the same failed efforts surface every year requiring more money to keep them afloat. I’ve maintained from the beginning that many of them should cease to exist, that the state should not be involved with functions the private sector should do. If we want to help business, which I think is fine, then we ought to do one thing and only one thing for them. That is, to get out of their way, reduce the constant regulating and taxing and let people produce wealth we all can enjoy. We should create an atmosphere of laissez-faire where business can flourish, with people left in splendid freedom.
Last year as usual, many politicians were influenced by special interests and now believe cutting spending is only a pipe dream. Many were willing to go along with the insipid notion that new taxes on tires, car and RV rentals, business licenses and vehicle registrations were “user fees.” This year, the powers that be want new taxes on tobacco products, cruise ships, hotel beds, tour guides and pull-tabs, and are calling them “contributions.” Even the tax loving Anchorage Daily News has made fun of this legerdemain.
The Governor did have the courage last year to buck some interests by eliminating the Alaska Science & Technology Foundation, so I commend and thank him for that. Although he completely abolished an agency’s funding, he should do the same with other unneeded programs too. The administration’s collection of a few cuts here and there along with an array of new taxes is not the answer.
There is ample room for placing departments like Environmental Conservation, Natural Resources and Administration on a “no new hire” diet and allow for natural attrition to take care of much of the cost cutting. Once agencies like these get small enough, we can easily abolish them with little fanfare or human loss and suffering. This is what we ought to do instead of finding new ways to torment Alaskans with new “user fees” or “contributions” and more controls on an economy already hobbled by the state. Can it be done? Of course.
Will it be done? That depends on how quickly we learn from lessons of the past. Social engineering is a proven failure and doesn’t help us. It mostly enriches expensive bureaucrats with high salaries, benefits and retirement packages, something out of reach of the average person. Private enterprise does work and is in everyone’s best interest. All we need is the wisdom and courage to stay out of the way and allow it to flourish.
Vic Kohring is a Republican and represents Wasilla and the Mat-Su in the Alaska State Legislature