I understand that the moneys COME from a gas tax. I don't understand why they GO to Alaska. The author seems incredulous that California gets more than twice as much money as Alaska... Golly, could that be because California has FIFTY TIMES the population of Alaska? Per capita, Alaska gets more than twenty times as much funding as California.
By the way, I grew up on Long Island. The bridge to Staten Island costs NINE DOLLARS, and serves hundreds of thousands of people per day.
READ MEY LIPS: The money was collected FROM ALASKANS via the GAS TAX. Its simply coming home after sitting in the trust fund for 40 years.
Yeah it's just not fair that the largest State in the union gets any pork. There aren't enough people for Alaska to really count as a State. Bummer for y'all. I feel your pain, really.
BTW you can stuff that, "Alaskans haven't paid gas taxes enough to share a place shoulder to shoulder at the trough with California" cr@pola.
ANILCA granted the State of Alaska something like 50% of trans-Alaska pipeline fees, the Federal government never ever paid that agreeded upon %. That's thirty years of billions of gallons of oil stolen from Alaska by the Feds/congress. So you know where you can stick that red herring.
That sounds like the position of a cheap-skate. We could go into all kinds of comparisons about the size of Alaska (5+ Californias...)but maybe I can help you understand why we manage to get more than other states...
We have what you might call a uniquely POWERFUL Republican delegation (Two Senators and only one Representative) who are able to steer much-needed revenues to our mostly undeveloped state. It won't last forever, but it feels pretty good now. When the Eisenhauer Administration was considering Alaska as a new state one of their primary concerns was that everybody in elected office here were Democrats! That changed in the 1980's.
Did you buy the Staten Island bridge for $9 when the other kid tried to sell it to you?
By your thinking then, Alaska should get noting and CA or NY should get everything.