By Bruce Walden
Candidate for US Senate
Veteran’s Party of Alaska
Let me say very clearly and right up front that I absolutely believe in the ideals on which our nation was founded. I cherish them and would die for them. What you are reading is not a rebuke of those ideals. But I do hope that it serves as a sound rebuke of the people who pretend to stand for those principles and have turned their backs on the people they say they represent.
Two hundred and forty years ago this year, we declared independence from Great Britain in large part because of taxation without representation. I have read that at the time we were paying about 2-3% in taxes while our cousins in the old country were paying much higher taxes. The problem wasn’t the taxes. The problem was our having no say in the matter. Now, we in America pride ourselves in having a say in how we are taxed.
Do we indeed? You have two houses of congress that have gone from complete control by Democrats, to split control, to total control by the Republicans. Both parties, both houses, and presidents for decades have said they are in favor of low taxes, job growth, strong defense, getting folks off the welfare rolls, and a strong education system that readies the next generation of Americans. What say ye, America- Alaska? Have those promises been kept? Are you indeed taxed with representation? When you vote for someone who promises to lower your taxes, and they are elected on that promise, then they immediately betray that trust, are you indeed represented?
I say no. They’ve all talked a good game, but the opposite of their promises has become the accepted norm. Taxes continue to skyrocket, jobs are fleeing our shores, our education system is the laughing stock of the world and Alaska is dead last in the nation. Meanwhile scores of millions live on welfare while guys like me and you slave away to pay them to not work. Industry is gone from our state and nation and this because of the EPA and other organizations who have Alaska so locked up we can’t move. Enough already!
Just a couple of weeks ago we passed the $19 trillion dollar mark (that they’ll admit to) and nobody even blinked. Do you realize how much money that is? $19 Trillion made of one dollar bills (which are .0043 inches in thickness) would reach to the moon nearly six times. That debt would cover the entire state of Ohio with dollar bills. And you never even blinked. Say, “My rep or my senator isn’t okay with that!” Really, do you really, blindly believe that? Again, both houses, both parties have allowed this.
A few months ago the Fed admitted to having lost $9 Trillion! They can’t tell what happened to it. That indebted you, your grandchild, your hundred year old great-grandma for just shy of $30,000 and they simply shrugged (as did you, the American Tax Payer apparently) and kicked the floor as if nothing were amiss. That is not to mention the other $10 Trillion which is there for all to see and which indebts you for an additional $30,000 plus!
While all that is going on, our military has been emasculated and we stand on the brink of a major war, and folks, let me tell you a few things. I was stationed in Okinawa in 1998 as a member of 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group and unlike the 99% of the people who claim to be a Green Beret, I really was. I have the clipping from the Stars and Stripes from that year that told of the launch of a three stage rocket from North Korea whose third stage landed just off the coast of Alaska. A casual observer, even the most cowardly one would have to see that they were trying to show they could reach your home. That was eighteen years ago. Now the nut job Kim Jong-un has nukes and he was allowed to develop them starting back then, but big time under the not-so-watchful eye of our illustrious commander in chief B. Hussein Obama (Tongue in cheek. He’s a joke). We are on the brink, and your sons, and now your daughters may well be on the front lines and nobody, but nobody has the guts to call Obama out for what he is.
Folks, I am in this race for US Senate because I can’t see either of our Senators really doing anything about any of the stuff mentioned above. Someone told me I had to build up a resume to run for high office. Well, I’ll tell you about my resume. I’ve laid down 22 years of my life in service of this country. I served in Grenada in 1983, a career in Special Forces, and afterward I served in Mosul, Iraq with Triple Canopy (one, if not both of the SEALs who died in Benghazi were once part of that outfit I think) and I’d do it again. Indeed, if the Army called me up, I’d leave tomorrow. I have served on the planning commission here in the Matsu, and have done a lot of writing. Where I stand on the issues is a matter of public record. No, I was not raised under the doting eye of the party fathers here in Alaska. I was a bit busy defending my country.
You want someone who will stand up for your rights as a vet? Here am I, send me. I was nearly allowed to die in 2013 because of the ineffectiveness of my VA doctor. Thanks be to God, they caught my condition in time to fix it. About five times as many vets have died waiting on the VA as we lost in the entire Vietnam War and I, for one, have a major problem with that.
There are a lot of vets out there whose spouse left them while they were in war, and those vets retired. Their ex gets half of their retirement or a good portion of it, until the vet dies- even if the ex remarries! I asked Dan Sullivan if he’d help us, and he looked me in the eye, promised to look into it, then promptly forgot about it. I will not! It was that soldier who was ducking the bullets, freezing his/her toes off, jumping out of planes and baking in the desert. It was not that unfaithful wife or husband. This is an injustice foisted on the American veteran since 1984. It is an unjust law and therefore must be abolished.
You want someone who can talk to Park Geun-hye, the president of South Korea as touching Alaska’s gas and oil resources or dealing with Lil’ Kim up north? How about someone who attended the same college as she (Sogang University in Seoul) and speaks her language as a second language, oh and who knows her society like the back of his hand? Do you want someone who can sit down with Russia and chat in their own language? (My Russian is far from perfect, but I speak it.) To my native friends, do you want someone who doesn’t stroke you by changing the name of a mountain, but who has taken the time to learn your language, and who has a plan to fix your schools and get you real jobs? I have such a plan and it makes so much common sense that it’ll anger you that it hasn’t been done already.
Benjamin Franklin penned words to the effect of, “If you watch your pennies, your dollars will see to themselves.” In writing the book Wickedness in High Places I walk through each cabinet position under this and any president, and I point out the waste that is easy to spot and this on their own websites. I allowed ten years of fixing the budget and cutting out useless pork, and before I was half way through the cabinet, the $19 trillion debt was gone! And that without sending you a dime’s worth of additional taxation. Before the ten years was out I show $8 Trillion plus in surplus. (There should be no surplus. The government should take in only what is needed and not a dime more.)
Come and visit me at the Alaska Club Theater from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm on the 26th of March. If you want to know more about what makes me tick, read my books There’s No Such Thing as Can’t, Were You Warned? And Wickedness in High Places which will all be available on pdf and for the latter, in audio as well. Lisa and I look forward to chatting things out with you.