Mike Shower and his unhinged, unfunded budget plans

Sen. Mike “Dozer” Shower is whining that he and Sens. Shelley Hughes and Robb Myers have been maligned over how they dealt with the state budget and he attacks Alaska news organizations over a minor mistake.

Shower, Hughes and Myers, astride their collective high horse, claim that the eight Republicans who have joined the 17-member Senate majority are traitors. And the trio claim they are not the budget obstructionists that others make them out to be.

They protest too much.

Start with Shower’s overwrought wailing about an error in the news coverage of the formation of the Senate majority. The assertion that Shower, Hughes and Myers refuse to cooperate with others on budget matters is certainly true.

In pursuit of a giant $5,500 dividend, they endorsed a break-the-bank budget that smarter people like Bert Stedman, Click Bishop and Gary Stevens opposed.

In some news reports, it was stated that Shower, Hughes and Myers voted against the budget last spring. Those reports were incorrect. They voted for the amended budget.

But what a budget. It was a reckless one that included a $1 billion deficit.

The press coverage of the formation of the new Senate majority was solid, for the most part. The bigger picture here is that Shower is ranting and raving and hiding a prime example of his failed “leadership.”

On May 10, Shower gave a Senate speech drawn from the Bonehead 101 school of government.

He said his plan to spend $3.6 billion in dividends and pay for lots of other programs was OK because oil prices would remain sky high because of the war in Ukraine. There would not be a $1 billion deficit because oil prices would remain high.

He knew this because someone sent him an article saying so.

”I will tell you as I mentioned before, just from Morgan Stanley today, or the article was just sent to me, that they’re predicting $120 a barrel of oil. ANS crude today is at $116 a barrel and predicting it to be that for some time as has been mentioned on the floor previously, based on world events not getting better, getting worse. So while that’s bad for the world, it’s good for prices here for oil,” said Shower, who identifies as a “conservative.”

As I wrote at the time, Shower had the wrong number on oil prices even then. Oil was selling for $107 a barrel that day. As of last week, Alaska oil is selling at $85 a barrel. Billions of imaginary Shower bucks have failed to materialize.

“It’s not an unfunded budget,” Shower insisted last May, with the words millions and billions rolling off his tongue as if he were counting nickels and dimes. “It’s underfunded.”

It was unhinged. And unfunded.

The final budget approved by the Legislature cut the reckless Shower plan by more than $1 billion. Even so, there could be a deficit in this fiscal year if oil prices remain where they are or drop a bit lower.

The good thing for 2023 is that Shower, Hughes and Myers will be nowhere near a position of power in making decisions on the state budget.

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