Our lack of a "self-generating" economy is a direct result of federal overreach. Those of us who were here in 1978 when Carter instituted D-2 remember the companies moving in and the opportunities that were growing from the discovery of oil. That all went away when companies became aware that they would be under constant and intrusive federal scrutiny even when they operated on state or private lands. The jobs dried up, mining companies left the state, only the huge corporations remained.

If Alaska were an independent nation able to offer realistic terms to resource developers, we would have that "self-generating" economy. Think Norway ... or Saudi Arabia.

Instead, we remain a colony of the United States with a placebic salve of statehood ... in name only.