I'd rather work across party lines than listen to back-and-forth political jabs.
Unfortunately when it comes to the state budget, there is real math, and political math. In the last two days our Senate president and House speaker have given you political math. They've avoided the inconvenient truth that Democratic and Independent legislators, while protecting educational opportunity and child abuse and neglect victims, have offered larger budget savings than our Republican friends have.
Working together, we can cut the budget and also protect what's vital to our economy and the people who live here.
So -- here's a request that we drop the pen and work together to adopt a bipartisan budget, not just a Republican budget that deeply cuts academic opportunity, help for seniors who cannot afford medicine, and that dishonors wage contracts for workers.
And there is no reason for a government shutdown. That, too, just requires simple compromise.
Our two GOP leaders, in commentaries this week, misstate that Democratic and Independent leaders have offered only budget increases (Speaker Mike Chenault claims an $80 million increase and Senate President Kevin Meyer claims it to be double that). They get to their bad math by avoiding an inconvenient truth.
The inconvenient truth is that we have offered far more budget cuts than our counterparts on the Republican side of the aisle. They leave out over $200 million in budget savings we have offered. These cuts omitted from their calculus include moving from the overpriced new Anchorage Legislative Office Building with automatic garbage cans into cheaper space.
So, sure, Democratic and Independent legislators have proposed to honor the promise made last year for education funding, and not take away $48 million from public schools, and lose more teachers and educators, as the GOP has proposed.
And we want a child protection system that isn't so overstressed and in such crisis that its director recently testified with these words: "Kids will, in fact, die" under this budget. Leaving our most vulnerable foster youth with a 40 percent homelessness rate and 27 percent incarceration rate, and a system in crisis isn't good management by your Legislature. And proposed cuts to job training and the university can be tamped down.
But we need to save money too. So here's what we've proposed, and what the House speaker and Senate president forgot to add in when they did their math: over $200 million in savings to the budget.
Right now the speaker and Senate president propose to have the state pay oil companies $650 million more in the next two years in oil company tax credits than Alaska receives back in oil production tax revenue under the 2013 oil tax law they passed. These oil tax credit payments are subject to a legislative decision to appropriate, just like the withdrawn 2014 Republican promise made for education funding that they've now withdrawn in their budget. We've proposed, in this time of a $3.2 billion budget deficit, to slow these oil corporation payments and cap them at $400 million-$500 million a year, and save roughly $200 million a year in state spending. Oil companies will get their credits, but they will be delayed by a matter of months.
Oil companies can handle inconvenience. Children and seniors shouldn't have to bear all the pain.
And we want to pass the governor's Medicaid expansion and reform bill, which will save $330 million in state spending over the next six years, bring 4,000 needed jobs and get sick people health care.
We should cut $6 million from unneeded funding for the $6 billion, unaffordable Susitna Dam, and $17 million from the controversial Bragaw Road extension. In all we have offered well over $200 million in these and other cuts.
A budget is a moral document. It shouldn't put oil companies ahead of seniors and children. We can cut the budget, but smartly, with a scalpel and not a bludgeon. And we should work together for compromise, for the good of all Alaskans, regardless of what party they belong to.
Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, is a member of the House Finance Committee. He has served in the House since 2003.
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