Yet key majority leaders have ignored Rep. Bill Hudson's invitation to discuss reinstitution of a state income tax and former Gov. Jay Hammond's insistence on it. The facts about the state's fiscal profile have long been known. A fiscal planning group that Gov. Tony Knowles assembled during his first term gathered the pertinent information and proposed possible solutions. In 1998 the Alaska Humanities Forum conducted a statewide discussion in 40 communities to provide Alaskans the opportunity to understand and discuss the matter. But legislative leaders shrink from the responsibility.
Subsistence also cries out for legislative responsibility.
Federal management of fish and game resources on federal and adjacent lands in Alaska, unique among the 50 states, mocks Alaska claims of independence and self-determination. Instead of acknowledging the will of the people, steadfastly manifest in a number of polls, a coterie of obstinate ideologues continues to block a referendum on the issue that would provide a definitive expression of voter intent. In doing so, they further alienate Alaska Natives, who are already distrustful because of previous Legislatures' challenges to Native sovereignty, reconfiguration of the education funding formula, and reluctance to fund rural power cost equalization. The effect of this denial of the express will of the people is to nurture Native distrust and to encourage its spread across the electorate. In another failure, the Legislature has appropriated no funds to study a natural gas pipeline.