Thank you Gov. Palin.

• Author: McCorkle, Vern
• Position: From the Publisher

In nearly a quarter century of editorializing for Alaska Business Monthly magazine, I have tried to be circumspect when commenting upon the variety of subjects that have been spread across these limited commentary pages.

Not so today. This is a direct complimentary piece thanking Gov. Sarah Palin for having the vision and the powerful innate intellect to know what to do at the right time--to help all Alaskans meet some of the challenges of a vicious and out-of-control energy crisis; one that has slammed Alaskans much more severely than it has for many of our brother and sister states in the Lower 48.

ALASKA GETS A WINDFALL, Too

As Alaskans watch from our ground zero vantage point, observing major oil companies announcing profits of billions and billions of dollars every three months, due in large part to the gamesmanship and unprecedented bloated world price of Alaska and foreign crude oil, over time we have come to think of such profits as windfall profits, not an unfair or inastute characterization.

Now, it is the people of Alaska's turn to judiciously avail themselves of an opportunity to materialize some of this one-time-only opportunity for absolutely and properly appropriate relief. And that is exactly what Palin is proposing with her emergency cost relief plan that can give Alaskans $100 per month for the next energy-heating-driving year that would reduce the crushing amount of cost hikes we have all experienced in the past few months.

Palin's one-year-long, $1.2 billion program is not an entitlement giveaway, as so many entitlements turn to be--it is our windfall program! These are not taxpayer funds...