Alaska gubernatorial candidate Mike Dunleavy has not gone into detail on his idea of closing small high schools and opening regional boarding schools in hub communities. Giving wide attention to this proposal would touch off arguments throughout rural Alaska.
Read MoreSen. Pete Kelly deserves most of the credit for putting a 2014 financing plan together to fund the power plant project at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He also deserves a big part of the blame for a catastrophic decline in state funding for higher education.
Read MoreIn a story on how the three crime-fighting candidates for governor intend to pay for expanded public safety operations, the Anchorage Daily News allowed Mike Dunleavy to get away with his fiction about thousands of ghost positions in the state budget.
Read MoreYou don’t have to be a political scientist to understand that ConocoPhillips would love to have one of its employees in the executive branch in Alaska. Its presentation, which excluded risk factors and qualifiers that must be made when anyone talks about billions of dollars that have yet to be committed by a wide range companies, should be interpreted in that light.
Read MoreMark Begich seems to be unaware of the progress made over the last couple of years in advancing the public discussion of the state’s fiscal problem. A lot of the credit for that progress goes to Gov. Bill Walker, and the coalition of Democrats and Republicans who led the House.
Read MoreFormer Sen. Mark Begich is right that former Sen. Mike Dunleavy’s portrayal of Iceland as the model for Alaska leaves out the inconvenient truth of taxes.
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It was almost as if the legislative witness from ConocoPhillips was there to help the campaign of fellow ConocoPhillips employee Kevin Meyer, a candidate for lieutenant governor in Alaska.
Read MoreIf the governor and Legislature follow the existing PFD formula in the law for dividends, the amount spent on them next year would almost double, from $1 billion to $1.9 billion. That would mean deficits of $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion a year though 2027, according to the current revenue forecast.
The $100 million Mike Dunleavy now describes as easy money just waiting to be cut from the budget by consolidating school district health coverage is another illusion.
Read MoreBefore he quit the Legislature to run for governor, Mike Dunleavy should have applied himself to examining the state budget. Had he done so, maybe he wouldn't be spreading a fable about one element of state spending that is obvious to anyone who has ever looked into the subject.