Anchorage Daily Planet Editorial: “He Feels Your Pain”

Bill Walker, Governor of Alaska. NGP file photo by Dave Harbour.

Bill Walker, Governor of Alaska. Northern Gas Pipelines file photo by Dave Harbour.

Gov. Bill Walker addressed the Alaska Federation of Natives convention and zeroed in on Alaska’s budget deficit and his decision to cut this year’s dividend by more than half.

He said Alaska is drawing down its reserves at about $12 million daily.

“I cannot tell you, I cannot describe to you adequately how difficult of time this has been to be serving as governor,” APRN reports him as saying. “The decisions I have had to make have been so painful, have been so painful, that I cannot adequately describe.”

Rather than cut the size of state government as oil revenues dried up….  (Read the rest of the Anchorage Daily Planet editorial here.)