We moved the state operating budget out of the powerful House Finance Committee, across the House floor and on to the Senate this week. The budget is a 79-page monster costing about $8.9 billion. At least that's how it left the House. Budgets never get smaller, however. They only grow. So there's no telling how much bigger it will get in the Senate, then in conference committee. But unless a meteor wipes out the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, we can probably afford it.
(Even if everybody goes completely nuts -- and the smart bet is they will -- we can probably pay for the capital budget, too. But that's a story that's yet to be written).
Maybe 90 percent of that budget is unchanged from the current budget. Maybe 95 percent. Then you add inflation, labor contracts and changes the governor wants to make, mainly increases. Then changes the House majority wants to make, again mostly increases. Then a teeny, tiny sliver the House minority manages to put in. And -- voila -- you have a budget that's 5.2 percent higher than the current budget.
That lasts as long as it takes the Senate to get its hands on it. In other words, no time at all.
Actually, the budget we passed is higher than the totals you are likely to read in the newspaper.
One of the prices you have to pay for being in the House of Representatives is listening to me talk. And one of the things I wanted to remind my colleagues about was that the budget most likely has a $129 million hole in it, caused by the likelihood that Congress is not going to give us that amount of extra money for health and social services. So if you are trying to follow what the heck we are doing, you might want to pencil in another $129 million.
All of which is a way of saying that being a legislator isn't all beer and skittles. It's more like playing Whack-a-Mole. Every time you knock a problem down, another one pops up to take its place.
Please Dont Feed the Senators
I went to a meeting of the Senate Resources Committee on Thursday to listen to the Parnell Administration roll out its bill to give another $2 billion a year for five years to the oil companies. The companies already get nearly $1 billion a year in tax credits. The new $2 billion would be on top of that.
That total -- $15 billion -- would be about all the money the state has put away aside from the Alaska Permanent Fund. That makes some people nervous. I am one of those people.
Watching the Senate work made me extremely happy about things.
First, I was happy that I wasn't the one making the presentation on oil taxes. In a minute's time it was clear that pretty much every senator knew more about the subject than the people making the presentation.
Second, I was happy that I'm not a senator. We have our moments in the House, and not all of them are pretty. But watching the Senators work over the presenter -- Commissioner of Revenue-designee Brian Butcher -- reminded me of a Wild Kingdom I saw once where a group of lionesses were pulling down a water buffalo. I'd last maybe a minute in the state Senate, if all the senators were well fed and feeling benevolent.
Actually, what happened wasn't really the senators' fault. The governor wants to hand over the keys to the state treasury without so much as the whisper of a promise that will do anything but fatten the bank accounts of some of the richest corporations on the planet.
Maybe there's some way that makes sense. But there was no evidence of that on Thursday.
Mike Doogan is an Alaska State House Representative, author and former newspaper columist. This column appeared in his legislative e-newsletter on March 11.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch. Alaska Dispatch welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.