Mike Doogan is an Alaska State House Representative, author and former newspaper columnist. This column appeared in his legislative e-newsletter on May 6.
We are poised to pass an operating budget today. A mental health budget, too.
(I'll pause here while you get the Legislature-mental health jokes off your chest.)
The operating budget is the big casino, the money to pay for the day-to-day costs of state government. This year's operating budget is just less than $9 billion -- that's $6.6 billion in state funds, $2.1 billion in federal funds. Next year's operating budget, the one we're working on now, is just more than $9 billion -- that's $6.9 billion in state funds, $2.1 billion in federal funds. That's an increase of about 4 percent in state funds.
In other words, we're spending a lot of money. A lot of money.
I have real doubts about all this spending. Is it, as some people say, too much? Is it, as others say, not enough? How long can we afford to spend so much? Where should we cut back? Shouldn't we be saving more for that rainy day that we are afraid is just around the corner?
There are a lot of people who are certain that they know the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, they all have different answers. One or two of them are in the legislature, but most of us are just muddling through. Doing the best we can, and working for something better next year.
The lack of tension is killing us
By now, if you're paying attention at all to the goings on in Juneau, you've figured out that there aren't any goings on. I've been bored before -- not this bored, but I'm familiar with the feeling. Bored people take up new hobbies, and 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.
Last week I wrote about a simple three-step plan the House Minority Caucus devised to get us out of here. I could have called it a three-legged stool, I suppose. That's been a popular metaphor down here for a few years, and this particular problem seems more like a stool to me than some of the others did. But that's for another discussion.
The only question that really matters at this point is, "Are we going to get something done with the capital budget, or not?" With all that talking, lecturing and speculating going on, the answer that is emerging is, "Who knows?" As I mentioned in the other section, the conference committee agreed on the operating budget, so we could theoretically get out of Dodge at any time, whether the capital budget is dead or alive. I wish I were more confident about how that might turn out, but instead I feel like a foot soldier in George Pickett's brigade. "Did that crazy old man say, 'Charge'?" So, I'll keep marching for now, because it's what I signed up to do, but I'm keeping my head down and only saluting because I have to.
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