What did NO on Prop 1 do for Alaska . . . NOTHING.

SB21 brought industry commitments.
So say T.J. Presley and Nick Moe, the two who pushed the SB21 Prop 1 NO campaign.
Industry commitments?
 What industry commitments?
 What did Alaska trade with SB21? Another one-way deal brokered by Hawker and Chennault, Conoco's boys.
BP is laying people off.
The work being done is maintenance that was ignored for many years. Now, maybe, in 2016, there will be a favorable Congress elected and a President who just might open ANWR and allow offshore oil and gas development. Makes sense to spend the money, just in case.
How will offshore development help or benefit Alaska? Alaska does not get a cut of those royalties. Aside from whatever village becomes the staging area, there is no benefit.
Then, there is the idea of upping production in a time of 'glut'. How many tankers from Valdez full of Alaska crude are turned away from West Coast refineries, because of the wealth of shale oil being produced?
Is our oil wanted in the market right now?  No.  There is an excess of oil, with surpluses being produced in the Middle East as a hedge against any crisis that might cause a spike in demand.  
Saudi Arabia is trying to produce sufficient surplus oil to cause a downturn below $80/bbl as part of a plan between the Saudis and the Obama Administration to create financial stress on Putin's Russia.  At $80/bbl, Russia can pay for government, at $79.99/bbl, it cannot.  Now, you know why the price of oil has been declining lately.
What happened to the NG from Qatar that was supposed to supply the U.S. domestic needs for 25 years? The first LNG tanker was turned around and sent to Asia last May. That gas now supplies 60% of the Japanese LNG market.
Even though the Japanese are looking for new suppliers, Alaska's governor and Legislature are not interested.
 Our governor and Legislature could have cared less about the Japanese delegations that came to Alaska to secure LNG post the Fukishima meltdown.  The Gov and the Legislature evidently work for Conoco and Exxon. That is clear, otherwise, why would $3B in potential investment into an Alaska natural gas pipeline and LNG train have been allowed to walk to Kitimat and Chenier in LA? Alaska was not interested in the deal, so the money walked and was invested elsewhere.
What did NO accomplish? More money for the oil companies, less for Alaska.
I am a no tax kind of conservative. I believe that Alaska should have stuck with royalties and never bothered with taxes on the oil industry. We would have been much better off, and the oil industry would have thrived here with a vibrant oil and gas service industry instead of the few companies engaged in oil and gas anything in Alaska--fiscal certainty and all of that. However, we became greedy, allowed our gov't to milk the oil companies and now, we play stupid games. Our Legislature and governor studies and studies and studies and we languish wondering if there will ever be any new development in the oil sector and in the gas sector?
People move to Alaska hoping, only to find an expensive place to live with the economy largely being fueled by gov't money.  Eventually, those taillights will be headed south--sooner the better.
The oil companies promised nothing and that's what we received with SB21. Nothing.
There is no leadership in Juneau. The increasing spending is a demonstration that we have devolved from building infrastructure with our oil royalties largess to maintaining and keeping the plebes happy with social entitlements. No leadership, no direction, no commitment to do other than kiss the oil companies' corporate posteriors in the vein hope that they will pull the rabbit of economic prosperity out of the declining oil revenue hat before we use the entire PF to keep the illusion of fiscal solvency alive. That is the problem, has been the problem ever since Sarah Palin was elected, left Alaska, and the boy wonder, otherwise known as Captain Zero, became Governor six years ago. Yeah, six years, we've been blessed with . . . nothing.
Now, we have a $7M per day deficit spending with Governor Parnell's spending excesses.
 SB21 is still the law, meaning less money to the State.
Fine.
Now what?
November will be the 'what'. The Legislature will not change. The same "me toos" will be back in Juneau to do what Hawker and Chennault say.
Hopefully, Bill Walker and Craig Fleener will have their shot at running the State. At least we will have a governor who has a plan to move forward with economic prosperity and fiscal responsibility as the goals.




http://www.adn.com/article/20140825/defeat-oil-tax-referendum-puts-alaska-win-win-territory

Is ACES the problem?

I think something is being overlooked in this discussion. It is easy to blame taxes. And, one has to give a minor kudos to Parnell who alluded to a potential decrease in the State's royalty taxes. However, there is more here than just taxes.

One of the primary issues is the state of the national economy. There has to be a market to sustain the exploration and development. That the market is in decline due to Obama/Pelosi/Reid's disasterous attempt to rewrite the national economy paradigm. Yeah, GWB had his part in the making of this mess.

That situation definitely has an impact on what happens where with any industry, much less oil and gas.An indicator of the impact of the national economy is Shell's pulling back from oil tar sands recovery expansion from a planned 700,000bpd to 225,000bpd, including putting on hold a potential technology pilot project for insitu recovery. Cost of production is up--and it is here also, a 68% increase in operations costs on the NS from 2001. Therefore, it stands to reason that the oil companies are shifting their focus to portions of world that do not have the regulatory baggage--read nimby/greenie lawsuit--where it is cheaper to operate, even if the return is lower. Exxon and others bid on Iraqi concessions for around $1.40pb.

Shell is going forward with its offshore exploration, something the Parnell Administration seems to be hyping as the new oil rush. State gov't does not get as much directly out that development, but will gain from the jobs and infrastructure in the communities where support bases will be established. Unfortunately, the State is used to a "trickle down" economy where the revenue goes to the State directly and is then distributed to the smaller communities. This type of development, as well as mining will start to put the State back in its place and give new economic power to the communities impacted by the resource development--as it should be instead of this socialist state and colonial economy that is Alaska.

Given the reduction in the tar sands expansion on the part of Shell, it appears that AGIA and Denali may have lost a great deal of their appeal to the Canucks. I doubt those big pipe projects will survive.

This means that ACES is important to maintaining a bloated State gov't, which also feeds bloated local gov'ts. Reducing ACES is going to be a fight, given declining production on the NS.Should ACES be reduced?

Ireland reduced their taxes and boomed economically. Alberta and Saskatchewan played tug of war with the oil industry when Alberta increased its production royalties, and the oil companies bailed for Saskatchewan. Alberta figured the situation out quickly, and made up for lost drilling by lowering the royalty tax. Lowering taxes and royalties cannot be understated in terms of demonstrated positive impact.

Yet, when Parnell in his State of the State suggested that the State's royalty tax may be reduced, a good conservative pundit howled like a striped ape. Why, we just cannot do that!

The reality is that taxes are only one part of the problem in attracting the oil industry back to the State.

Taxes alone will not bring attention back to Alaska, a redress of regulatory impediments must also happen. Marathon Oil did not complain to the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce about taxes, they complained about the regulatory burden in aquiring the permits to drill new exploratory wells.

Calling for a reduction of ACES is only one aspect of what is needed to create a favorable environment for the oil/gas industry to reinvest in Alaska. A reduction in the royalty tax should also be looked at and weighed. However, the primary focus should be on the regulatory impediments. That's where the delays and the real money is lost to the oil companies and any resource development business trying to do business in Alaska.

In the mean time, we need to elect a governor who can move the State forward in the face of declining oil revenues and that candidate is Bill Walker. The all-Alaska pipeline will provide revenue, jobs and infrastructure that would allow the State to reconsider its policies regarding oil and gas development from a position of not having to knee jerk to demands that may be well intended, but might not have the end result desired.

President Obama and his new taxes--junk food

Recently, the President of the United States made a startling revelation at a town hall meeting in New Mexico. He gave a bleak appraisal of the future if the U.S. continues out of control spending. Pres. Obama said that the U.S. cannot expect foreign governments, notably the PRC, to continue to buy U.S. debt. He further went on to say that the end result will be higher interest rates for U.S. consumers.

This is an admission on the part of the President of the United States that his policies and his budget will result in inflation. Raising interest rates is a mechanism to control the rise in monetary supply.

Pres. Obama admitted that future generations will be saddled with repayment of an ever increasing debt burden due to the interest accruing on the deficits created by his excessive spending.

The deficit for this year is now adjusted upward to $1.82 TRILLION. An impossibly high number for we normal folks to grasp. Or so Pelosi, Reid and Pres. Obama hope, anyway.

The President proposed $17 billion in budget cuts from this year’s budget to show he is sensitive to the impact of his and Pelosi’s budget. However, he plans another $81 billion in additional spending.

A recent report on the Lou Dobbs show on CNN revealed that the average federal employee saddles the U.S. taxpayer with a total of $78,000 in wages and benefits. Whereas, the average yearly salary and benefits cost of employees in the private sector is approximately $38,000.
Pres. Obama’s Stimulus program is purported to increase government employment rolls by up to 600,000. These new employees will feed off of taxpayers at a rate of an additional $4.68 Billion a year.

What do the dems propose to alleviate this hemorrhaging of money?

New taxes!

The new tax plan is to levy taxes on junk food. Under a recently announced plan, the American couch potato will soon be taxed for soda, potato chips, and other snack foods.

It is one thing to tax those evil coal fired power plants, but Coca Cola? Say it ain’t so, Barack!

If this tax scheme comes to fruition, the dentists and fat sucking (liposuction) docs should be up in arms. Without sugar rotting our teeth, and the fat from the over consumption of carbohydrates from junk food, the demand for luxury cars and Caribbean cruises will plummet!

Gone too will be all of those wordy advertisements and books promising to reveal the secret to being skinny and still eating yourself sick if you only take this super pill made from some strange just discovered sea creature’s urine. (Kind of like reading another biography of Sarah Palin, only more interesting.)

These highly paid folks will be reduced to driving a used Yugo-- all because Pelosi and Pres. Obama decided to tax our Cokes and (yuck) Pepsi and potato chips!

This may be the final straw—which you will no longer need for that Coke you can no longer afford—that drives GM and Chrysler to . . . communist China to have PRC slave labor build econo boxes for the newly impoverished in the U.S. who will no longer be able to afford a bag of potato chips much less a Cadillac or Lincoln.

What will life be without the crunch of potato chips while reading a book, or while watching a movie on the telly? (As if you will be able to afford the electricity, once the cap and trade carbon tax scheme is in place.)

The new health care scare will be skinny, overfit Americans—the natural outcome of reducing our carbohydrate and sugar consumption.

Doesn’t our President and Congress understand the negative impact of their actions?

Surely, Nancy Pelosi knows?!

Well, maybe not. She seems to be having trouble owing up to having been told about interrogation techniques used against terrorists.

What will the dems think of next?

Making pedophiles a protected class?

Yeah, right. Wait a minute . . . Senate Bill 909, isn’t that about . . . oh, good grief!

Democrats. Ya gotta love ‘em.

Remember to vote come 2010.

By then you will have lost so much weight from not being able to afford potato chips and soda, that you will be able to run to the polls!

VAT tax cut results in increase in consumer confidence

Once again, a reduction in taxes had accomplished what all the spending by gov't could not.

The ER cut its Value Added Tax by 2.5% late last year. Already, this cut has resulted in an increase in retail sales of an estimated $2.1B Euros.

Unfortunately, in the U.S., the only thing Washington can do is to take away from one sector and give it to another. Not to mention ensure that our taxes will be raised in every sector.

God help us, if the Europeans can figure it out, why can't our leadership in Washington, D.C.?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7995850.stm

Change the tax policy if you want a green industry

Once again, the U.S. Congress is where it was during the 1970s with the politically driven and politically correct desire to reduce the environmental impact of U.S. industry. Instead of providing tax incentives to allow our industry to reduce atmospheric emissions, and to eliminate the impact upon our water ways and soils, Congress at that time chose to leave the tax code intact, and so began the great exodus of heavy industry to elsewhere in the world.

In his 1980 run for president against Ronald Regan and George H. Bush, John Connolly, former governor of Texas, proposed a sweeping change to the tax code. Connolly proposed to allow business to add pollution control equipment and to modernize plants when doing so with the ability to immediately write off the entire amount of the needed changes to meet EPA’s new regulations. Unfortunately, this idea failed with his candidacy.

Ronald Regan fought for tax cuts, but not the specific changes needed to allow a business to write off millions in new pollution control equipment in one fell swoop, rather than amortizing the expense out over 20 years, the life of the building under IRS code.

What happened to our heavy industry? Over the next 20 years it went to Japan, China, India, Argentina, Chile, and Thailand to name a few places benefiting from our stupidity. Our industry went to places without controls. And, our Congress watched it go bye bye in the name of “free trade”.

Instead of making it feasible for U.S. industry, including the car makers, to reduce their environmental impact, and to upgrade and to modernize production facilities that in many cases were unchanged since the end of WWII, Congress elected to leave that portion of the tax code unchanged.

Business, being profit driven was driven to looking offshore to compete with the burgeoning Japanese heavy industry.

Our steel, and other heavy industry went elsewhere along with hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs. This exodus is continuing today in the service sector. All because Congress cannot figure out that a simple change in the tax code was necessary to allow our industry to meet pollution control laws.

Yet, by contrast, in response to the 1973 oil embargo, Congress authorized the Trans Alaska Pipeline System construction by passing the most the liberal construction tax package in the history of Congress. The oil companies comprising what became Alyeska Pipeline Company enjoyed tax breaks off of the construction cost for years beyond the pay off date for the pipeline. Which pipeline, by the way, was paid for within 3 months of the first barrel of oil flowing south to Valdez.

A good start is a rational tax policy designed to achieve the national goals of environmental protection and to achieve the strategic national defense goal of maintaining our industrial and labor base by keeping industry here.

Our industry has always had to compete with countries—not businesses, countries—who subsidize their industry. Try to compete with Mitsubishi when Mitsubishi can get a 2% forever loan from the Japanese government to improve production technology, whereas CAT must acquire financing at the going rate and terms in the U.S. financial market, as well as deal with unchanged tax code that punishes innovation. Hence, Mitsubishi owns part of CAT, Chrysler, on and on in order for our companies to get some degree of competitiveness.

On a micro economic scale, even this peon had that lesson brought home the hard way. In the 1980s when the price of gold was high, IHC Holland came to Alaska. Ever tried to sell a “home grown” mineral processing plant when the local banks would not support the local miner, but the foreign firm could offer national financing through the Dutch national bank for their project?

What would be the impact upon the U.S. steel industry, for example, of being allowed the full write off at the time of expenditure of the cost of meeting EPA regulations by reducing green house gas emissions and meeting environmental regulations, which tax write off also allowed renovating a steel mill to include robotics and other improvements to increase production efficiency?

The impact would be immediate and beneficial.

What business wants to depend upon the third world for manufactured goods?

My experience with Chinese fittings, hoses, and other materials handling equipment is not good. These items fail before they should. The accelerated replacement of that junk was a major factor in my job cost this summer.

I further believe, that such a tax policy would have the impact of attracting foreign industry to the U.S. That would not hurt the labor force.

The U.S. provides a stable, educated workforce. A workforce that would grow and provide generations of Americans opportunity. These workers would have a standard to meet and would need to educate themselves to meet the needs of industry.

I believe that such a need would have a positive impact upon education, as where would be a need for education in the workplace.

Even the common laborer has to be literate and able to read and write English.

However, Congress will not be able to figure this out. There are too many ways to split the dollar, and business is evil in the dem mind. As bad is the globalist Republican mindset that is too focused on a "one world" economy that the rest of us has to pay for with our jobs and the country's industry in order to raise the standard of living in every rat hold in the world. This in the face of the reality that the best way to nation build is for a nation to develop its business infrastructure to serve a domestic market rather than be used as a cheap labor pool for the U.S.