Alaska's latest political upstart, Joe Miller, wants to go Wyoming Gov. David Freudenthal one better. While Governor Freudenthal had threatened to sell state lands within Grand Teton National Park to the highest bidder, Mr. Miller wants the federal government to turn over all national parks to the Alaskan government.
Of course, Mr. Miller, a favorite of the Tea Party, has a long way to go to see his dream come true. First he has to beat U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski for the Republican nomination for the seat -- something he seems en route to doing, what with a 1,600-vote lead at last check. Then he'd need to win the November general election race against Scott McAdams, which perhaps is no sure thing.
Still, he's got moxie!
In an interview with Alaska Dispatch, Miller said if elected to the Senate, he will fight for state control of vast swaths of Alaska currently under federal ownership. Promoting resource development on those lands would help Alaska pay its own way and break its dependence on federal money, he said.
On Miller's list of federal lands that the state should control is Denali National Park -- Alaska's equivalent of Yellowstone National Park. Denali, a pristine park with only one road, is home to Mount McKinley -- the nation's tallest peak -- as well as grizzly bears, wolves, Dall sheep and other animals.
"If there's a significant resource in that park that we could get at in a responsible way -- and the state decides it's appropriate to extract it -- let's create jobs from it," said Miller, adding that he moved to Alaska because he loves hunting and fishing and doesn't favor anything that despoils the wilderness.
Of course, talking about such a land deal and making it happen are two very different things, especially when Mr. Miller envisions either the federal government going bankrupt and voluntarily relinquishing its holdings or a change in the U.S. Constitution that would give states the upper hand over the federal government.
Perhaps Wyoming's governor should have been so bold. All Mr. Freudenthal did was suggest he would put two square-mile sections of state land that are surrounded by Grand Teton on the market if Interior officials didn't make a reasonable offer for the land. Well, apparently that offer was made last week. After meeting with Tom Strickland, assistant Interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, and Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, the governor told reporters that "we put together a transaction."
Comments
I agree with Danny. Some Alaskans live in very remote areas, but when something happens that affects their chosen way of life their quickly holding out their hand waiting for Government assistance.
Perhaps Mr. Miller would like to lead the charge for Alaska to secede. That way, he and his Alaska Tea Party colleagues could live entirely free and independent of the billions of dollars of federal aid that keeps the state running each year. They all could enjoy the liberty of being 100% responsible for all of their own needs. Just imagine the utopian Tea Party world, where a free Alaska must provide (entirely on its own) "national" defense, schools, roads (and bridges to nowhere), food, health care, etc. With more people in Alaska than in the entire city of Las Vegas, there will be plenty of manpower (highly skilled, no doubt) to do all those jobs efficiently. There would be no parks, of course, because Mr. Miller would be working diligently to "extract" any natural habitat out of existence. But still, everyone in Alaska could enjoy the liberty of being "free" from pesky US federal aid and oversight. Good idea!
Alaskans are hardly the examples of independence. They are more dependent on Federal largesse than any other state in the Union. And Mr. Miller wants to take even more....
This is red meat for rednecks and a bluff-charge by this 'papa grizzly'. Without it's massive federal subsidies, Alaska would be a frozen Guatamala:
http://www.adn.com/2010/08/30/1431200/can-alaska-really-curb-its-appetit...
The liberals have had their crazies for a long time. It's about time the conservative crazies represent themselves.
In the immortal words of Ted Stevens,
"I am guilty of asking the Senate for pork and proud of the Senate for giving it to me."
another right wing idiot Tea Bagger sporting the scarlet "I"
To the brave poster called "anonymous", I consider Tea Baggers "nutbags" because they don't offer any real solutions, just a bunch of goofy rhetoric and ideas chained together from Scrabble tiles. I haven't heard a single, intelligent, thoughtful plan come out of that group at all. It's just diatribes and slogans and "death panel" paranoid nuttiness.
In the words of Peter Griffin: "I am not a fan."