Dunleavy, who proposed giant deficit, looks for excuses to cut education
When Gov. MIke Dunleavy first became governor he claimed he had a “permanent fiscal plan” and he promised to never propose spending “massive amounts of savings” to pay for the state budget.
“Those days are over. We can no longer spend what we don’t have, and we can’t pretend otherwise,” Dunleavy said in a press release on February 11, 2019.
“The foundation of my budget is based on the principle that expenditures cannot exceed revenues,” Dunleavy said, claiming his would always be an “honest budget.”
He abandoned that foundation and that principle long ago.
Last December he proposed that expenditures exceed revenues by $1.5 billion, which has since swollen to about $2 billion for various reasons, including lower oil prices at the start of what Dunleavy calls the “Golden Age of Alaska” under Trump.
On Monday, Dunleavy clained to reporters that the $1.5 billion deficit he proposed in December was responsible.
“What's happened since we put our budget in, the fiscals have gone south on us, that’s a fact,” said Dunleavy.
It’s not a fact. The “fiscals” had already dipped far below the horizon when Dunleavy proposed his $1.5 billion deficit six months ago, calling for spending about half of what is left in the Constitutional Budget Reserve.
“There was a gap in the fiscals, there’s no doubt. We asked to go into the CBR. But now that the fiscals have played out and it looks like this may be a low oil price trend for least a little while, that decision has to be made to some degree independently of the policy issues.”
“And so we'll see what comes out of this session here in the next day-and-a-half.”
“But the framers of our Constitution wanted the executive to make sure that the the fiscals and the funding were done in a responsible manner. That’s what we’ll do.”
Translated, Dunleavy is looking to cut spending on education, arguing that “the fiscals” will dictate cuts from the balanced budget the Legislature has struggled to create, erasing his giant deficit.
Don’t be deceived here by Dunleavy’s vapid talk.
The state can afford to fund public education, though he will claim otherwise. The Legislature has acted responsibly.
Even if his veto is overridden by the Legislature, he will look to cut school funding with a line item veto, claiming it will be a responsible action on his part.
No one who proposes a $1.5 billion to $2 billion deficit, as Dunleavy did this year, can claim to be responsible.
Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.