Disgusting........
Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:59 pm
Passing the hat in the 'GOP Welfare State'
By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST
With a haul of federal pork that in 2005 amounted to $984.85 for every person in the state, Alaska is a land run by crony capitalists who do their share of good -- and do awfully well -- courtesy of the federal taxpayer.
Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick will meet some of the great fixers of the Great Land at an Anchorage fund-raiser Thursday night.
They're part of what the magazine The Washington Monthly described last year as a "GOP Welfare State," one that has drawn criticism from such conservative pundits as The Wall Street Journal's John Fund.
"Consider the controversy that just the Alaska congressional delegation has managed to stir up with the intricate web of ties between its earmarks and various relatives of the members," Fund recently wrote.
My Brother-In-Law's Keeper: Sen. Ted Stevens' brother-in-law Bill Bittner is a sponsor of the McGavick event. Bittner has also played a major role in business deals that made Stevens a millionaire.
"An Anchorage lawyer and lobbyist, Bittner represents major business interests for whom the senator has repeatedly gone to bat," the Los Angeles Times found in a 2003 investigation.
"Stevens engineered a $9.6 million federal appropriation that chiefly benefited a Bittner client, part of South Korea's Hyundai conglomerate. Stevens tucked a single line into a must-pass appropriations bill that used federal tax dollars to buy the company out of a coal-loading facility in Seward."
All in the Family: The Alaska congressional delegation pushed hard for the "bridge to nowhere" that will link Ketchikan to its airport, currently a six-minute ferry ride away on Gravina Island (population 50).
Congress deleted an earmark for the bridge, but Alaska was given a huge pot of highway money. Gov. Frank Murkowski OK'd the bridge and gave it a down payment of $91 million.
The governor's wife and three siblings happen to own a 35-acre parcel of land on Gravina Island. Mrs. Murkowski has claimed they've repeatedly tried to sell it and found "no willing buyers."
Still, local officials value the plot -- one of the few private parcels on Gravina Island -- at $245,000. It sits three-quarters of a mile from the western terminus of the bridge.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the governor's daughter, is a headline sponsor of the McGavick fund-raiser.
Another In-Law: A second major sponsor of McGavick's fund-raiser, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, championed another "bridge to nowhere" -- a $229 million span that will connect Anchorage with nearly deserted Point MacKenzie.
It'll be called Don Young's Way. The Anchorage Daily News recently reported that Art Nelson, the congressman's son-in-law, is part owner of what he called "a beautiful property" the development of which will be opened by the bridge.
Nelson told the Daily News that he talked about the land purchase with Young. Another partner in the venture is fisheries lobbyist Trevor McCabe, a former top aide to Sen. Stevens.
In turn, McCabe was formerly business partner with Stevens' son, state Sen. Ben Stevens, in a lobbying firm representing salmon fishermen.
Completing the circle, Art Nelson is chairman of the state Board of Fisheries.
Building a Nest Egg: In 1997, Stevens invested $50,000 in a development syndicate, headed by developer Jonathan Rubini, called JLS Properties. Stevens was a self-described passive investor, whose stake grew to $250,000 as properties were bought and sold near the Anchorage Airport.
When Elmendorf Air Force Base was picked in a Pentagon program to privatize base housing, Rubini and another group of partners bid on the $450 million contract. Bittner was an investor in the Elmendorf bidding group, the L.A. Times reported.
The Rubini group apparently won the contract, only to see the Air Force renege. Stevens went to bat: A buddy on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., threatened to take away privatization money from Elmendorf. Rubini found a new partner and got the lucrative contract.
Stevens continued as a passive investor in other Rubini ventures: According to the Times, his holdings rose to between $750,000 and $1.5 million from the initial $50,000 investment.
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp. pays $6 million a year on a 20-year lease to occupy Centerpoint I, an Anchorage office tower financed by JLS Properties.
The Voice: The head of the giant oil services corporation Veco is on McGavick's sponsor list. Bill Allen is also publisher of Voice of the Times, an editorial voice of the defunct Anchorage Times that survives as the half of each day's Op-Ed page in the Anchorage Daily News.
The Times was famously, unabashedly prodevelopment. "The fears about damage from oil spills are like the fears of Henny Penny when she ran to tell the king that the sky was falling," one editorial stated.
Curiously, however, the pro-development Voice has lately recognized that the rest of the United States is getting fed up with Alaska's pork-barrel reputation.
"As things stand, the state's reputation in Congress and on the national political stage is severely damaged," it opined recently, and called the "bridges to nowhere" catfight "but the latest problem with a national perception" of waste and greed.
Who has put Alaska in a political world of hurt? Mike McGavick should look around the room at his reception.
=======================================
Yet Dems are the ones who run up the deficit.
Hopefully the voters here will be smart enough to send Klondike Mike packing.
By JOEL CONNELLY
P-I COLUMNIST
With a haul of federal pork that in 2005 amounted to $984.85 for every person in the state, Alaska is a land run by crony capitalists who do their share of good -- and do awfully well -- courtesy of the federal taxpayer.
Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick will meet some of the great fixers of the Great Land at an Anchorage fund-raiser Thursday night.
They're part of what the magazine The Washington Monthly described last year as a "GOP Welfare State," one that has drawn criticism from such conservative pundits as The Wall Street Journal's John Fund.
"Consider the controversy that just the Alaska congressional delegation has managed to stir up with the intricate web of ties between its earmarks and various relatives of the members," Fund recently wrote.
My Brother-In-Law's Keeper: Sen. Ted Stevens' brother-in-law Bill Bittner is a sponsor of the McGavick event. Bittner has also played a major role in business deals that made Stevens a millionaire.
"An Anchorage lawyer and lobbyist, Bittner represents major business interests for whom the senator has repeatedly gone to bat," the Los Angeles Times found in a 2003 investigation.
"Stevens engineered a $9.6 million federal appropriation that chiefly benefited a Bittner client, part of South Korea's Hyundai conglomerate. Stevens tucked a single line into a must-pass appropriations bill that used federal tax dollars to buy the company out of a coal-loading facility in Seward."
All in the Family: The Alaska congressional delegation pushed hard for the "bridge to nowhere" that will link Ketchikan to its airport, currently a six-minute ferry ride away on Gravina Island (population 50).
Congress deleted an earmark for the bridge, but Alaska was given a huge pot of highway money. Gov. Frank Murkowski OK'd the bridge and gave it a down payment of $91 million.
The governor's wife and three siblings happen to own a 35-acre parcel of land on Gravina Island. Mrs. Murkowski has claimed they've repeatedly tried to sell it and found "no willing buyers."
Still, local officials value the plot -- one of the few private parcels on Gravina Island -- at $245,000. It sits three-quarters of a mile from the western terminus of the bridge.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the governor's daughter, is a headline sponsor of the McGavick fund-raiser.
Another In-Law: A second major sponsor of McGavick's fund-raiser, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, championed another "bridge to nowhere" -- a $229 million span that will connect Anchorage with nearly deserted Point MacKenzie.
It'll be called Don Young's Way. The Anchorage Daily News recently reported that Art Nelson, the congressman's son-in-law, is part owner of what he called "a beautiful property" the development of which will be opened by the bridge.
Nelson told the Daily News that he talked about the land purchase with Young. Another partner in the venture is fisheries lobbyist Trevor McCabe, a former top aide to Sen. Stevens.
In turn, McCabe was formerly business partner with Stevens' son, state Sen. Ben Stevens, in a lobbying firm representing salmon fishermen.
Completing the circle, Art Nelson is chairman of the state Board of Fisheries.
Building a Nest Egg: In 1997, Stevens invested $50,000 in a development syndicate, headed by developer Jonathan Rubini, called JLS Properties. Stevens was a self-described passive investor, whose stake grew to $250,000 as properties were bought and sold near the Anchorage Airport.
When Elmendorf Air Force Base was picked in a Pentagon program to privatize base housing, Rubini and another group of partners bid on the $450 million contract. Bittner was an investor in the Elmendorf bidding group, the L.A. Times reported.
The Rubini group apparently won the contract, only to see the Air Force renege. Stevens went to bat: A buddy on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., threatened to take away privatization money from Elmendorf. Rubini found a new partner and got the lucrative contract.
Stevens continued as a passive investor in other Rubini ventures: According to the Times, his holdings rose to between $750,000 and $1.5 million from the initial $50,000 investment.
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp. pays $6 million a year on a 20-year lease to occupy Centerpoint I, an Anchorage office tower financed by JLS Properties.
The Voice: The head of the giant oil services corporation Veco is on McGavick's sponsor list. Bill Allen is also publisher of Voice of the Times, an editorial voice of the defunct Anchorage Times that survives as the half of each day's Op-Ed page in the Anchorage Daily News.
The Times was famously, unabashedly prodevelopment. "The fears about damage from oil spills are like the fears of Henny Penny when she ran to tell the king that the sky was falling," one editorial stated.
Curiously, however, the pro-development Voice has lately recognized that the rest of the United States is getting fed up with Alaska's pork-barrel reputation.
"As things stand, the state's reputation in Congress and on the national political stage is severely damaged," it opined recently, and called the "bridges to nowhere" catfight "but the latest problem with a national perception" of waste and greed.
Who has put Alaska in a political world of hurt? Mike McGavick should look around the room at his reception.
=======================================
Yet Dems are the ones who run up the deficit.
Hopefully the voters here will be smart enough to send Klondike Mike packing.