When your neighbor’s boat is swamping, you don’t call Washington, D.C., you grab a bucket.
No one from the Lower 48 is coming to save us. We don’t expect them to. But right now, I’m feeling real fear from people who have never shied away from hard work or bad weather.
Families are stretching paychecks so thin they can see through them.
Young people who grew up here can’t afford to stay.
Seniors are watching their savings get eaten alive.
Meanwhile, politicians in Washington, D.C., are trading stocks and taking meetings with the same CEOs driving up your costs.
Last month, I sat with families along the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers.
Elders teared up talking about empty fish racks in communities where diesel costs $10 a gallon and could be 50% more expensive after the next barge.
People aren’t asking for a handout, they’re asking for a return to abundance. The response: Choose between overpriced fuel or overpriced food.
I know we can solve these problems. I started by asking Alaskans what they need:
- Keep Alaska for Alaskans. Alaskans should not be paying some of the highest energy prices in the country. We’ll fight for in-state refining capacity so we stop buying back our own oil at a markup, permitting reform so Alaskans benefit from Alaska’s resources and tax credits to accelerate development of lower-cost renewables in every region. And we’ll stand up to price gouging, because squeezing people in a crisis isn’t capitalism. It’s predatory.
- Pay workers well. Our Wages-First plan will reward companies that pay workers well and charge more to the ones that don’t. If you pay workers higher wages before executives get bonuses, your taxes go down. It’s common sense.
- Put money back in Alaskans’ pockets. That means eliminating federal income tax for more than half of working Alaskans and ending taxes on Social Security. Washington, D.C., has taken enough of your hard-earned money.
- Lower shipping costs for Alaskans. We need an Essential Freight Service, modeled on the Bypass Mail Program that rural communities depend on. Shipping a pallet of groceries to Anchorage, let alone Kotzebue, costs more than the groceries themselves. That’s a problem that requires a Ted Stevens-esque solution. Alaska fuels this nation, supplies the essential minerals for tech we rely on and keeps the country safe. We shouldn’t have to pay extra, and we’re a better investment than forever wars.
- Make life affordable for Alaska families. A tax credit up to $3,600 for parents raising kids to make growing a family affordable. Expanded child care options so families aren’t choosing between work and their kids. Overseas Cost of Living Allowance expansion, so service members and their families can afford to live in the state they’re protecting.
- And real housing solutions. Renters spending more than 30% of their income on housing deserve a tax credit. Alaska Native communities deserve fully funded Indian Housing Block Grants to increase rural housing supply. Corporations buying up homes that should be going to Alaska families? That stops.
Washington, D.C., people didn’t build Alaska. They don’t get to bleed it dry.
Every Alaskan is feeling the weight of crushing costs.
These are Alaska solutions for our Alaska-sized problems from our communities, who know better than Washington, D.C. But we should be very clear: The issue was never a shortage of solutions. It’s that the people with power have gotten too cozy with the special interests driving up your costs.
No one from the Lower 48 is coming to save us. So we need someone in the Senate who’s actually from Alaska and for Alaska, fighting for you every single day.
Alaska first. No exceptions.
