Editorial

The governor will go to great lengths to avoid supporting a tax - any tax - but taxes are how people pay for public services.

Instead of thinking about the public, his administration's latest ill-conceived plan is to close Division of Motor Vehicle offices in six small communities so that he can claim budget savings of $500,000 a year.

Of course, what the state may save, the public would have to pay - and more.

The administration has proposed contracting with private operators to provide driver's license and vehicle registration services in Haines, Homer, Eagle River, Tok, Delta Junction and Valdez. Those private companies would charge the same license and registration fees as the state, plus a mark-up for their expenses and profit.

Legislators, wisely, are pushing back against this bad idea.

Residents in Haines who don't want to pay the extra fee could take a state ferry to Juneau and visit the motor vehicles office there. Residents in Valdez could drive six hours to Anchorage. Residents in Tok could drive four hours to Fairbanks.

You get the idea. Residents in those communities would have no option other than paying the higher fees for any services they cannot obtain online at the state website.

This is all because the anti-tax governor believes privatizing public services counts as cutting the budget. He is wrong. While it does cut state spending, it sets up private businesses to profit from providing public services and often costs the public more as a result.

A better idea is for the governor and Legislature to decide which services are needed, look at the state checkbook, and tax everyone fairly so that all can share in the responsibility to provide - and benefit from - public services.

A good example is a bill waiting for a hearing before the House Finance Committee. Alaska's motor fuel tax is the lowest in the nation, at 8 cents a gallon. It's less than one-third the average of the other 49 states and hasn't budged from 8 cents in 51 years.

It's time to raise the tax to pay for improved road maintenance.

But the governor is non-committal on the tax. It's time he understood that taxes are not bad; the problem is bad decisions: Such as telling small-town Alaskans to pay more for the same services that other Alaskans receive.

Closing the offices and contracting out the work is a bad idea, especially when it's done under the pretense of a state budget cut that produces a profit for someone else.