Mike Doogan

OPINION: Alaskans received an average of nearly $18,000 per person in federal domestic spending in 2011. Is all that money the government spends really federal overreach? If there’s any overreach, it’s the reach into Uncle Sam’s pocket.

Everywhere you look, someone is telling Alaskans how to vote in the upcoming primary election. But who's listening? Who cares? Only about three in 10 eligible voters will even bother casting a ballot.

OPINION: There are three reasons the Alaska Legislature is in special session yet again. All of them indicate we're in for a wild ride.

OPINION: Welcome to constitutional amendment week. Please don your powdered wig and listen up.

What legislators need is a regimen of restrained eating, temperate drinking and regular exercise. And they need to watch their spending.

After some Wednesday shenanigans, if you see an official from the Department of Revenue in Rep. Mike Doogan's office, you better have your eyes checked.

OPINION: The governor seems to be willing to say anything, and threaten anything, to get his way on oil taxes. Information from the administration is at best unreliable. And oil companies and industry groups continue to thump the tub. I can hardly wait to see what happens next.

If you’ve never worked on the state budget before it would be reasonable -- but wrong -- for you to assume we lawmakers start by taking a look at how much money the state will bring in for the year, then carefully spending based on what we can afford.

OPINION: Many bills offer legislators the chance to spend, spend, spend, but since spending is much more popular than saving -- particularly in an election year -- poor House Bill 194 won’t have a happy ending. But I’ll give you my pitch anyway.

OPINION: What's important in Juneau isn’t just your party, it is your intelligence and willingness to work. So I have come to appreciate the efforts of people with whom I have no political kinship at all. Who'd a thunk it?

Let's talk about money. I don't know if you've got enough money to be worth talking about. I don't. But together, we -- and every other Alaskan -- have a pile of money. Not a Denali-sized pile, but nothing to sneeze at.

Alaska's capital budget features nearly $13,000 of state spending per Alaskan. You figure to get $13,000 worth of state government in the next year? Be honest now.

The most popular hobby in Juneau’s austere halls of government these days is talking about what’s not happening, lecturing on what should be happening, and speculating about how we might make it happen.

Sunday night featured, bar none, the saddest performance yet by Alaska officials in the 50-plus years of the state’s history.

After two weeks of hearings, the Legislature has only learned two facts about Alaska's oil tax rate: Gov. Parnell and the producers really, really, want it lowered, and everything else is in dispute.