U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Diana Honings.
Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a week after Anchorage voters approved all bonds floated during the last Municipal election, Assembly members Forest Dunbar and Suzanne LaFrance are floating a proposal that Anchorage taxpayers subsidize child care for Assembly members and employees of the Muni’s Assembly Department to the tune of $5,000.
Rationale for this money grab is mumble, mumble…. diversity. Apparently, our Dynamic Duo believe that paying prospective Assembly members child care, so they can serve on the Assembly out of our pockets is a “good idea.”
Dunbar is quoted “One of the main goals of this is to try to open up access to serving on the Assembly for families with young children.”
Several questions come out of this.
First is why are parents with young children singled out for this good deal? What about parents of older children? How about those of us caring for a family member? How about parents of children who have moved back home?
Answer: While the proposed subsidy is written so that it only applies to families with children younger than 6, it can and will be expanded to cover older children. LaFrance has three of those.
A second goal is to make it easier for single moms to serve on the Assembly.
Why would this in any way possibly be a Good Thing? Isn’t every single social pathology we are suffering in this nation today associated with single parent households? Rather than making it easier for single moms to raise kids in a single parent household, perhaps this pair might consider how to keep parents together in a two-parent household so the rest of us don’t have to bail them out for their lifestyle choices.
And singling out single moms for this largesse is by definition sexist, as it leaves out single dads.
Then they propose expanding the subsidy to the rest of the Muni. To what end?
Most of us with children and family members that need daily care have figured out how to make ends meet while raising them or properly caring for those family members. Dunbar, LaFrance and those who support them apparently are insufficiently competent to do so without $5,000 in free money every year from Anchorage taxpayers. If they are that incompetent, perhaps they ought to resign from the Assembly as they are doing more harm than good.
To be fair, Dunbar did pull the proposed ordinance a week after getting beat up by the general public for his attempt to enrich himself and his fellow travelers via Assembly Ordinance. But it is only a matter of time before they are back for another bite at the apple.
Dunbar is supposedly one of the new wave of millennial liberals, young, smart, with a little military stink on him. LaFrance was elected via a smarmy little whispering campaign by her supporters, unions and fellow democrats aimed at Albert Fogle a year ago accusing him of being a stealth gay rights supporter.
The only stealth we have going on here is a money grab and it is now out in the open. And that money grab is being done using The Children as the hook, the excuse and the vehicle for their perfidy.
Dunbar and LaFrance are nice, young, photogenic, leftists. They learned the old lessons early and often: Spending OPM (Other People’s Money) and buying votes with that money is much, much easier than earning those votes. And doing it while hiding behind The Children and single moms is the very best thing of all.
Perhaps we ought to make sure their tenure on the Assembly is short so that they may have sufficient time get back to the business of taking care of their own families.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He is a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
