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Hi-ho,
hi-ho …
It’s off to work we go. The special
session called by Gov. Sarah Palin to
consider changes to our oil taxes starts Thursday, so I’m on an
airplane to Juneau
Wednesday afternoon. I’d complain about the cost and inconvenience,
but I volunteered for this. What was I thinking?
Anyway, I’m going to try to send one
of these each Friday we’re in session. You can reach me the usual
ways anytime you want to put in your two cents worth.
The ACES
plan
You’ve got to hand it to Palin. The
woman knows her way around an acronym. This one stands for Alaska’s Clear and Equitable
Share, Palin’s plan for changes to the current tax system. It
should actually be called PPT Redux, since it’s mainly an attempt to
tune up the bad bill passed last year and claw back some of the money the
state lost by letting the oil companies deduct whatever they wanted from
their tax payments.
There are a lot of details – the
bill is 46 pages long. But the short form is that it’s a pretty
timid attempt to increase the state’s take from our own oil, which is
selling at record-setting
prices. I’d write more about it, but I’m still trying to
understand the bill, and why we should be worrying about what Exxon might
not invest if we actually take our fair share of the value of our own oil.
Say what?
I appeared on an Alaska Journal of Commerce/State Chamber of
Commerce forum on oil taxes on Thursday. Talk about your stacked decks.
Anyway, here’s part of the Anchorage
Daily New story on the event: “One panelist, state Rep. Mike
Doogan, D-Anchorage, told the crowd his concern as a lawmaker isn't
preserving oil company profits, it's making sure the state has the
operating money it needs.”
Here’s my question: This is news?
Shouldn’t every member of the state legislature be more concerned
about paying for government goods and services than about how many billions
in profits Exxon, BP and ConocoPhillips make every year? When the good
people of House
District 25 elected me to the state House, did I become an ex officio
member of AOGA?
And don’t give me any of that
partnering nonsense. Alaska
has two relationships with the oil companies, neither of which is partner.
One is as the owner of oil and gas. In that sense, the companies work for
us, pumping our oil (and our gas, if we can ever get them off the dime)
because we don’t want to do it ourselves. The second is as sovereign.
In that sense, we make rules and levy taxes. In neither sense are they our
equals. And just because they, and those Alaskans they hold in economic
thrall, say different doesn’t make it true.
Man, that felt good. I haven’t
gotten off a good rant in some time.
A
confession
At one point during the program, I almost
said, “It’s better to die on your feet than live on your
knees.” Honest to God, I almost said it. I’m thinking maybe the
anything-for-oil crowd doesn’t bring out the best in me.
Setting
radio back decades
On Thursday, I also spent a couple of
hours hosting Mike
Porcaro’s gabfest on KENI radio. Most of that was about oil
taxes, too. I talked to Revenue Commissioner Pat Galvin, House
Majority Leader Ralph
Samuels, R-Anchorage, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Hollis French,
D-Anchorage. You can listen here
if the spirit moves you. (Scroll down and click on the link that says
“Listen” right below “Mike Porcaro Show –
10-11-07.”)
Polls, we
got polls
On a more cheerful note, I’ve gotten
50 responses to the question about oil taxes I sent to the voters in my
House district. Here are the results:
-- A whopping 72 percent -- that’s
36 in real numbers -- said, “The law needs to be changed to tax the
full value of oil from the big North Slope
fields, a so-called tax on the gross.”
-- A paltry 12 percent -- six respondents
– said, “The law is fine and we should leave it alone.”
-- Four percent – two people –
said, “The law is broken but can be fixed without abandoning a net
profits approach.”
-- Another four percent -- two people
– said, “I need to know more before making up my mind.”
-- Eight percent – four people
–had other ideas entirely.
Now, this poll is not scientific. But it
does represent the opinions of people who cared enough to take the time to
answer. And you know what? This is a game that you can win only if you
play.
A much more scientific poll, this one by
the Hays Research Group,
supports the idea that Alaskans don’t much like this net profits
approach.
In June and again in September, Hays asked
Alaskans, “In general,
which state oil tax policy do you prefer?”
In June, 52 percent of respondents
preferred a tax based on the market
value of the oil. Thirty-five percent preferred a tax based on the
producer’s declared profits. The remainder either didn’t know
which of
the tax systems they preferred or refused to answer.
Last month, 61 percent said they preferred
a tax on the market value,
23 percent chose the profits-based tax and the rest either didn’t
know
or refused to answer.
Many Alaskans also think that current
state oil taxes are too low. In
its most recent poll, Hays asked: Do you think currently that oil taxes
are too high, too low, or about right?
Forty-two percent of those polled said the
taxes are too low; only 14
percent said they were too high. Twenty-four percent were of the
opinion that the taxes are about right, while the rest either didn’t
know or wouldn’t answer.
You’ll be hearing more from me.
Can’t say you haven’t been warned.
Regards,
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