The claim that slashing public services in Alaska and making it difficult to raise taxes on the oil industry and other industries will somehow build confidence among investors and lead to immense levels of new investment in Alaska is impossible to believe.
Read MoreThe proposed constitutional amendment by Gov. Mike Dunleavy would strip Alaskans of a right they have under the Alaska Constitution, which is the power to enact taxes through the initiative process.
Read MoreThere is a relationship between population growth and the history of spending. That the Dunleavy administration uses bafflegab to claim otherwise is one of numerous problems with its proposed spending limit.
Read MoreThere is a lot of babbling about a budget crisis in Alaska. We have a crisis, but it’s one created by a lack of leadership in the governor’s office, not by a lack of solutions.
Read MoreThis attempted sleight-of-hand, which candidate Dunleavy never mentioned, has almost been lost in the ballyhoo about his plans to deal with the so-called $1.6 billion deficit.
Read MoreThe Dunleavy education script, which he recites like the Pledge of Allegiance, doesn’t include anything about why average scores on the NAEP test are low. It doesn’t deal with the reasons that Alaska spends what it does on schools or the high rate of teacher turnover. It doesn’t mention the relationship between poverty and academic success.
Read MoreFormer Sen. Bill Stoltze, who worked for Gov. MIke Dunleavy for less than three weeks, resigned Dec. 21 as director of the Mat-Su office. One of the unanswered questions is whether the governor knew of this case when he hired Stoltze.
Read MoreFor some reason, the Buckeyes didn’t care for a column in which I said their conclusion that Alaska needed no taxes to solve its fiscal problem was something that Carnac the Magnificent could have divined in advance.
Read MoreDunleavy’s script hasn’t changed, although his overly simplistic arguments don’t hold up under critical examination. The constant repetition of nonsense does nothing to turn it into something other than nonsense.
State health commissioner Adam Crum said Monday that the state had decided a “couple of weeks ago,” to pull out of a no-bid contract with Wellpath for privatizing the Alaska Psychiatric Institute. But that’s not what he told legislators 11 days ago.
Read More
