Sneering From The Sidelines

The central Kenai Peninsula's state Senator, Tom Wagoner, was interviewed by the PC the other day. Tom had nothing good to say about the 26th Legislative Session - the budget was too high, the Dems will probably raise taxes, a legislative pay raise was passed without a vote, and Feb 2 is now Marmot Day.

What Tom fails to mention is that he chose to sit out any active participation in the session by refusing to join the across-the-aisle collation that all but four senators became part of. So all Tom got to do was vote. This is the third session in a row that Tom has doodled while most everyone else at least attempted to debate, compromise, figure things out, or whatever they do down in Juneau.

Tom had his to say about the collation: ""They won't take on any hard philosophical issues, both left and right, so you have a middle of the road Legislature doing middle of the road things."

Um, Tom - isn't that what the voters wanted? After years and years of failed right-wing policies and corruption scandals, maybe the voters wanted some sanity. I believe you were elected to represent us. Sitting on your ass and letting the other senators hash things out and then complaining that you didn't like what they did seems a bit whiny.

To his credit, Wagoner did vote against Palin's choice for AG, Wayne Ross. But why? Only because Ross supported Tom's opponent in the last election. Oh, I see. Tom thinks that being vindictive is one of those hard philosophical things.

I've got to give him props for voting against Marmot Day. But then again, maybe that's the best we can expect of the folks we send down there. At least that law is fairly innocuous and made some 5th graders happy.

Tom closed the interview saying he is going to attend a state legislature's conference in DC and promote opening ANWR and make sure that east coasters don't keep the refuge closed.

That's it Tom, sit out the entire AK legislative session and then go on a free junket to DC. There needs to be some sort of eligibility for senators like there is for high school athletes. If you don't do your work, then you don't get to travel with the team.

And just how are you going to keep those east coasties from keeping ANWR closed? If you haven't been paying attention, the lefties overwhelmingly won the last election. Maybe if you promise to return all of the subsidies that Alaska gets from the taxpayers in all those blue states, you might get some traction with that. Otherwise you're asking those east coasters to pay to help run our state without giving them any say. Hmmm...taxation without representation is tyranny.

Or maybe you really don't want to take on any real hard philosophical issues.