Our state representatives Andi Story and Jesse Kiehl held a discussion of important topics Monday night at the Chilkat Center. Sen. Kiehl explained how oil funds our economy and how difficult it is to project the dollar value of oil for our state’s income. Rep. Andi Story passionately described how education is imperative and is used as a bargaining tool towards the end of each session, which should not be the case. She explained that education is expensive, nearly a third of the overall state budget.
A fellow asked what the state was doing about birth control. I thought “What? His answer to the cost of education is to produce fewer children?” He went on to describe how birth control could solve the problem, and some other guy in a trucker’s hat chimed in to explain how difficult it is to obtain prophylactics in Haines. I guess he knows all about that.
So, this is how we want to use our valuable time with our state legislators — talking about how the state can reduce the number of children to lower education costs? Our state is losing population, and has trouble filling critical jobs on the ferries, teachers, and other state workers. We need more people, not fewer. And this is what these two dudes wanted to waste our valuable time with our legislators to discuss — not critical issues like the cost of fuel, housing, and the lack of full-time, year-round jobs.
