Speaker B
210:13 - 211:13
"People that do not benefit from this, the people who will pay more, who shoulder more of the tax burden, are renters, the uninsured, and small businesses."
“People that do not benefit from this, the people who will pay more, who shoulder more of the tax burden, are renters, the uninsured, and small businesses.”
- Speaker
- Speaker B
- Timestamp
- 210:13 – 211:13
- Community
- Alaska News
- Location
- Mat-Su Borough
- Captured at
- June 16, 2026
From the transcript
People that do not benefit from this, the people who will pay more, who shoulder more of the tax burden, are renters, the uninsured, and small businesses. One of the first things that I asked when I got on the assembly was I asked Cheyenne, you know, hey, I really hate property tax. How much will we have to— levy an area-wide sales tax, get rid of property tax. And I mean, off the cuff, I think it was 7 or 8%, you know, and I dropped it right there because I knew of, you know, I have an economics degree and I know what the impact of having a 7 or 8% sales tax or a 6.5% sales tax 40 miles away, well, not even 40 miles away, 40 minutes away from a municipality that has a 0% sales tax when 31% of our workforce leaves every day and goes to that municipality, it's very easy for them to stop and make purchases there. So I think that one of the things that the elasticity of demand that we calculated didn't take into account is how many small businesses will shutter if this thing were to pass.
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