A state government shutdown is two weeks away.
This costly and needless disruption to the lives of everyone in Alaska can be avoided only if legislators get a budget onto the governor's desk to sign and keep state agencies functioning after July 1.
Members of the House and Senate are fooling themselves if they think anyone will listen to complaints that the other party or the other half of the Legislature is to blame if a shutdown takes place.
If state agencies and the University of Alaska have to shut down, everyone in political office will be fingered as the culprits.
The fault will fall on all 60 legislators, those in power and those in the minority, regardless of what they believe about their opponents being too stubborn or too blind to compromise.
[Alaska Senate adjourns; Walker calls 2nd special session to avert July 1 government shutdown]
Gov. Bill Walker will get his share of blame as well, though he is operating without a powerful negotiating weapon used in times past to persuade reluctant legislators — a capital budget packed with projects for districts across the state.
It comes down to this: The House won't approve a budget unless a reduction in the Permanent Fund dividend is accompanied by taxes. The Senate won't approve a budget unless a reduction in the Permanent Fund dividend is unaccompanied by taxes.
The split over how much to spend in the fiscal year that starts July 1 is a relatively minor disagreement. The bigger fight is over the future of state finances.
A compromise would be for the House to lower the amount it expects to collect from taxes and the Senate to agree to accept some level of taxes.
Senate pronouncements about an alleged miracle plan that requires no new taxes and includes budget cuts that no one identifies is based not on a realistic appraisal of the situation but on wishful thinking.
Without taxes, the course of least resistance in the years ahead will be to take more and more from Permanent Fund earnings, putting a dividend of any size at risk.
If the House accepts less than its leaders believe is necessary in new revenues and the Senate acknowledges that something other than a dividend cut is required, a solution can be found.
Both sides have to be flexible enough to realize that a government shutdown must be avoided at all costs. That would hurt every incumbent.
The House approved a budget Thursday night that had no chance of being accepted by the Senate, though it was advertised as a reasonable plan.
Though a bold move, it was a big mistake — one that should not be repeated. I'm not sure what the House leaders thought they would accomplish, but a take-it-or-leave-it plan is not sensible.
Ill-advised as it may have been, however, it was not the Juneau equivalent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon is not Dillingham's answer to Vladimir Putin, as alleged by a couple of angry House Republicans.
The Senate has refused to budge in public on taxes, which is every bit as much of a stumbling block to compromise as the House budget approved Thursday.
The best thing now is for both House and Senate members to realize they are in a new special session and they can start over and stop calling each other names, backing opponents into corners.
It is up to them to narrow their differences and settle this.
Legislators bemoaning the failure of others to compromise need to get past their own intransigence in the best interests of the state and do it now.
Columnist Dermot Cole can be reached at dermot@alaskadispatch.com.
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