I recently had a bathroom experience that reminded me of education legislation being considered down in Juneau this legislative session.

While on a trip this past week, we stayed at a hotel catering to Japanese tourists. They provide unique amenities that are not commonly seen in American homes. Our room included something new to me, an electric toilet with a heated seat. It also had a built-in bidet and a hot air dryer. If you have never used a toilet with these features, you don’t know what you have been missing. It transforms your bathroom experience into something ethereal. When I sat on that nice warm seat for the first time, I swear that the heavens opened, and I could hear the angels singing. It was an epiphany for me. My wife was doubtful when I told her about it, but after trying the toilet for herself, she liked it so much she asked me to install one when we got back home.

A bit of research using Google showed me that her request was impossible. These things are expensive and require both an electrical and plumbing connection. To get one installed when your home isn’t designed for it, you are talking about tearing up your bathroom and spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. That was when reality came into the conversation. While it would be nice to have a toilet like this, it would disrupt our current home, and the cost would be prohibitive. We decided that this was one luxury we would have to live without, and it must remain a rather unique vacation memory.

Both of these programs are so expensive that they may take away all our annual PFD checks and force the state to implement an income tax, bankrupting our state treasury in the process.

While thinking about the toilet, it reminded me of recent legislation being proposed in Juneau. Senate Bill 88 has been introduced by Senator Cathy Giessel and passed by the Alaska Senate, giving enhanced retirement benefits to Alaska teachers. Evidently, having solved all the more pressing budget problems facing them, our legislators now want to give schoolteachers a fancy new “defined benefit retirement program,” also known as a pension. I call it new, but schoolteachers had this benefit once before. In 2006, legislators decided the state could no longer afford to pay teachers a pension upon retirement, so they changed the teacher retirement program to a 401 (k)-like program that is aligned with what most workers in the private workforce get these days.

The change in 2006 should have settled the issue, but today’s liberal legislators down in Juneau have apparently forgotten the lessons of the past and decided to have another go at it. Their motivation might be because they got elected with the support of the teachers’ unions, and some of them, like Senate President Gary Stevens and Representative Rebecca Himschoot, are former educators themselves. These legislators are trying to resurrect the old pension program and put some lipstick on this pig to get it passed in the current legislative session.

The teacher retirement isn’t the only public-school giveaway they are working on. In addition to legislation bestowing teachers with a new retirement program, they are simultaneously working on a different educational bill that radically raises the Base Student Allotment (BSA) allowance, making public education incredibly expensive for the state. For some reason, our legislators’ biggest priority this session is to suck up the teachers. It seems a little early, but maybe they are thinking about next year’s election, already, and trying to get the support and votes of the education lobby.

Both of these programs are so expensive that they may take away all our annual PFD checks and force the state to implement an income tax, bankrupting our state treasury in the process. Although the teachers would like this legislation, we cannot afford these extravagant giveaways. They aren’t financially possible right now without committing theft from every man, woman, and child in the state in order to do it.

Returning to my toilet analogy – when I was sitting on it for the first time, I also noticed an unmarked button on the wall, and as any red-blooded Alaskan would do, I pushed it. Did I mention this device also had a built-in bidet? I had never used one of these devices before, and as you can imagine, I got quite a surprise. After a few chaotic minutes, I restored order but learned that unexpected surprises could arise from the most benign of actions. This should also be a lesson for our legislators. They might pass legislation with the best intentions to support public school education, but just like the fancy toilet, there might be unpleasant surprises arising from their actions.

The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.

Click here to support the Alaska Watchman.