GOP keeps claiming tax bill is aimed at middle class. It isn't.

It is not smart politics to highlight what you are doing for big earners when you cut taxes, so the Republicans want to make it appear that families earning $75,000 are their real target audience, not rich people and one percenters.

Dermot ColeDecember 13, 2017Comment

Alaska senators help save giant tax loophole for cruise ships

You would think that a U.S. company paying a 1 percent tax rate—thanks to long-established policies endorsed by both parties—deserved a tax increase under the GOP tax plan that Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan like to advertise as "reform." But you would be wrong.

Dermot ColeDecember 11, 2017 Comments

For starters, let's talk about process

In creating their unpopular bill to cut taxes and explode the deficit, Senate leaders stuffed as many giveaways as possible into the measure, offering a little something to please every Republican, never counting the real cost.

Dermot ColeDecember 9, 2017 Comments

'The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on'

I began work in newspapers in 1976 covering sports in Fairbanks, working on an electric typewriter, a chain-smoking 23-year-old. Writing has never been an easy thing for me and I will never master it, but I have the discipline to keep trying to learn.

Dermot ColeDecember 8, 2017 Comments