What a colossal waste of money

In a state that had to scratch everywhere to find money to meet the budget and eventually cut several services, some of them vital to the state's citizens, today Republicans in the Legislature voted to spend $450,000 to sue the governor saying he abused power initiating Medicaid expansion in Alaska. To top it off they hired an out-of-state law firm to handle the case.

And that expense is just the beginning. The administration likely will have to spend an equal or larger amount in defending the governor's action.

But not only is the suit challenging the governor, if successful it would also deny up to 40,000 Alaskans the medical care they need.

Additionally experts have said the governor was well within his power to expand Medicaid and so the suit likely will be thrown out somewhere in the process and the state will have spent close to a million dollars essentially throwing it down the drain. How many teachers' salaries could be paid with a million dollars, how many roads repaired?

Mind you this is not an original idea with our legislators. They are not intelligent enough to have thought it up themselves. No, this is an action right out of the American Legislative Exchange Council playbook. That's the organization sponsored by the Koch Bros. to bring their agenda to state legislatures. At one time there was a pledge ALEC asked the nation's state legislators to sign saying they would forward the Koch program to steal America from its citizens. They force the agenda into every state and many legislatures, particularly those with Republican majorities have passed a number of ALEC's recommendations. Remember a couple of years  ago when one of our astute legislators advanced a bill to ban Sharia law in Alaska? That was an ALEC proposal. And what would you bet that Outside law firm has a connection to ALEC and the Kochs as well?

These legislators need to be replaced. They are a lawsuit-crazy bunch who sue anybody who disagrees with them at the drop of a cliche. A few years ago Alaska joined the suit to stop Obmacare, environmental rules, wildlife management, any number of issues including same-sex marriage and those almost always fail, just like this one most likely will.

Meanwhile the rest of the state suffers under an extremely tight budget and legislators threaten to squeeze money from anywhere they can including the Permanent Fund. Who do these people think they represent, anyway?

Tracing the actual costs

Alaska's bond rating downgraded

State has $3.6 billion budget deficit