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Washington, D.C. – Alaska Congressman Don Young shared the following statement in response to the President’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget proposal submitted to Congress earlier today: 

“While I appreciate the increased attention this proposal brings to Alaska and the Arctic, including the nation’s growing need for a polar class icebreaker and the unique challenges facing Alaskan families and communities, overall this budget is more of the same – an explosion of new taxes, no constraints on our skyrocketing federal debt, and a double down of failed federal policies.

“This is a frustratingly insincere proposal because it identifies problems of great concern to many Alaskans, but fails to identify any genuine path to solve them. Proposing pie-in-the-sky funding mechanisms only serves to trivialize the dire situations in our remote coastal communities.  It’s ironic that this budget proposes to take resources away from communities throughout the U.S. that currently benefit from resource development in order to support coastal communities in Alaska, when our own state’s resource development efforts have been stymied by this Administration’s policies.  If the President truly believed in building a resilient Alaska, over the past seven years he would have established a regulatory climate that encourages investment, and he wouldn’t have proposed a $10 a barrel oil tax that would drastically reduce production and cause irreversible harm to the Alaskan economy.

“Ultimately, it’s the President’s obligation to propose a budget and the House’s duty to implement one. I am committed to defending Alaska’s interests, fighting for our communities, and ensuring we are prepared as an Arctic nation.”

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