• Oil production, which provides between 80 percent and 90 percent of the state's operating budget and thousands of jobs, is in decline. Unless oil production increases, that decline will continue and take state revenue with it. No replacement on the scale of oil is in sight.
• Gas lines -- both lines to supply Alaska needs and a line to tap the North American or Asian markets -- are no sure thing. For all the talk of milestones, for any promises of what will happen, the fact is we just don't know if we'll have a gas line to serve Outside markets, or even one to tap North Slope gas for the state.
These are hard facts that suggest hard times ahead.
We've been here before and been rescued, not by dint of our own work but by forces beyond our control.
Dial back a dozen or more years ago, to the mid- and late '90s, when "the fiscal gap" was the chronic topic.
Two cliches became rote: we were headed for "a train wreck," or we were "going over the cliff." Or maybe we were on a train going over the cliff. Predictions of financial disaster varied, but all had in common this assumption: It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
Oil prices that rose two ways -- gradually then suddenly -- made "when" go away. In 2004 we held the Conference of Alaskans, hoping for an echo of the wisdom of Alaska's Constitutional Convention to put us on a sustainable financial course. By 2008 Gov. Sarah Palin and the Legislature added a $1,200 resource rebate to everybody's Permanent Fund dividend, and at the same time lawmakers began to brag about how much money we were socking away.
Our problem was no longer how to fill the gap. Our problem was the much sweeter: what to do with our surplus.
Last legislative session, lawmakers were confident enough to pass a $3 billion capital budget, most of which Gov. Sean Parnell supported.
But now the warnings have sounded again. Oil's decline not only imperils the budget but the pipeline itself; you need a sufficient volume of oil to safely ship it. Our operating budget continues to grow while that oil income declines.
Dark warnings are a tough sell in a state where we've heard them before and they didn't come to pass. But we shouldn't ignore them, and voters should consider which of the candidates for governor seems to have the best grasp of the state's current economic situation and what the state should do to provide for its economic future.
"Fiscal gap" talk is dull history, but the wolf still knows his way to the door.
BOTTOM LINE: Alaska's economic future is the defining issue of the campaign.
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