Your Mayor At Work In Washington, D.C.

If you want to drop in at City Hall for a visit with your mayor this week, you're out of luck. He's busy elsewhere.

In fact, the mayor -- aka as Democratic Senate wannabe Mark Begich -- is in Washington, D.C., attending a fund-raiser in his honor.

Who's the sponsor? None other than Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, one of the biggest anti-ANWR and anti-Alaska Democrats in Congress.

Somebody should tell Begich that you're known by the company you keep.

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Blowing Smoke: Dems Yammer About Alaska Oil

It's simply astonishing the way members of Congress can speak without knowledge and pompously dish up misinformation and witless political comments.

Take, as a wonderful example, last week's statement by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland. He made three points, as nearly as we can figure out what he was proposing.

1. The administration -- meaning President George Bush, primarily -- is dragging its feet on increasing domestic oil production. "Democrats support increasing the domestic production of petroleum and other energy resources."

Really? Not that we have seen. The reverse is true. On every major effort, the Democrats in Congress -- and their supporters in the environmental lobbies which fuel their campaign chests -- have thrown up roadblocks to exploration and development of oil, especially in Alaska.

2. Democrats, as opposed to Republicans, favor an increase in production in the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska. "This administration has been dragging its feet on leasing in those areas," Hoyer asserted.

Really? Not that we're aware of. In fact, the opposite is true.

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Is It True

Is it true that Mark Begich years back, got a loan from Home Savings and Loan for $210,629.93 (Municipality of Anchorage Recorder of Deeds, Notice of Default, Book 1702, Page 103) on a property that later sold at auction for $99,920.00.(Municipality of Anchorage Recorder of Deeds, Trustee's Deed, Book 1739, Page 797)?

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Begich: Running On City's Time?

Mayor Mark Begich, with all due fanfare, jumped officially into the race for the U.S. Senate on Monday -- going on the radio in the morning, followed by a public announcement covered by the press and the TV cameras, and then flew off to Fairbanks to repeat the same hoopla.

Did he take official vacation time to do this? Or does he justify a campaign trip to Fairbanks as being official city business?

In his call-in radio report, he said he wanted everything to be open and transparent.

Good. Let's see his vacation log.

As a footnote, we also see that a number of people who had been on the city payroll have now quit their jobs and taken up employment with the Begich campaign committee.

It makes you wonder how important their services were worth to the city to begin with. You can bet before he made official his entry into the Senate race that some of their busy days at the office also touched on Begich's aspirations for higher office.

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NRSC Attacks Begich For Late Business Taxes

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) had more than $16,000 worth of tax liens put against his vending machine business in the 1990s, according to research provided by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Begich, considered a top recruit by national Democrats, has formed an exploratory committee as a precursor to running against Sen. Ted Stevens (R) this fall in what could be the senior Senator's most competitive election to date.

According to Begich's exploratory committee, he and his brother founded Northstar Vending in the early 1990s and fell behind on payroll tax payments in the following years. Once notified by the Internal Revenue Service, the committee said the brothers paid off the lien: about $8,820 in 1995 and $8,024 in 1997. Begich's campaign also disclosed a separate 1996 incident in which he was a 1 percent investor in a local cafe that did not pay its taxes.

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National Republican Group Attacks Begich

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which funds begichbaggage.com, took a swipe at the mayor this week.

They claim back in the early 1990s Mark Begich didn't pay his taxes on a small business he owned.

It comes on the heels of a poll that shows Begich's popularity growing.

Begich said the claims were not unexpected.

"It doesn't surprise me they would do this," Begich said. "They've thrown mud in the past. What's different this year is people are fed up with it."

The site alleges Begich had a federal tax lien against him from a small business he was a partner in, owing the IRS about 8,000 in 1995, and again in 1997.

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