12-30-15 Tomorrow is the eve of Alaska’s great year of budget challenge

Tomorrow is the eve of Alaska's great year of budget challenge!

by

Dave Harbour

Our friends in Canada are not immune from fiscal challenges.  After all. spending too much may really boil down to 'human nature' issues that, to understand, require us to 'follow the flows of money and power'.   Canada's leaders and Rebecca Logan and a dedicated Alliance staff add perspective to Alaska's fiscal crisis.         Petroleum News.  No easy answer to Alaska's fiscal crisis. environ- mental consti-tuencies are under-mining   eco-   nomic health   with 'Climate Change' policies;  attacks   on job   and wealth producing oil and gas pipeline projects; and, threatening continuing  productivity of oil sands work.   Here is a Huffington Post update….  -dh Friends:  Just be aware that Governor Bill Walker's faux hopes for a gas pipeline come too little and too late to help our pending fiscal crisis.  The government's equity position also requires the payment of operating subsidies at a time when the state itself is operating at a deficit.  (See the Journal's story.  We have concluded that Walker's unrealistic optimism for government ownership of an energy project seems to exceed his enthusiasm for making tough, fiscal crisis decisions.) Furthermore, as we have oft reminded our readers, profits from equity ownership will be elusive whereas equity risk can result in more calamity for state budget planners. -dh

In understanding Alaska's pending fiscal crisis, first review our commentary with links, earlier this week.

Second, note that in facing Alaska's huge economic challenge, Anchorage's pending municipal support for enviable union contracts sets a poor precedent.  The signal to all is that, "Alaskans are really not facing an economic crisis.  Ignore the doomsdayers.  Carry on with business as usual.  Our best days are ahead of us; spending restraint is unnecessary.  The fact that private sector non profit and for profit corporations are laying off employees, deferring raises and cutting work hours is not important; after all, the government costs and employee wages cannot be infringed."

Third, we have Alaska Headlamp's commentary this morning, thanks to Rebecca Logan (NGP Photo) and her Alliance staff.  We suggest that all Alaskans should be on high alert, watching for signs that in an election year public officials will:

• ignore and try to kick the economic crisis can down the road (i.e. making crucial decisions even harder next year), or
• courageously face the economic threat by taking action to first, cut expenses to the bone, before considering the imposition of more costs on the oil industry, our major creator of wealth–and other private sector sources.

Conclusion.  Based on Anchorage's union contract direction, we are less optimistic that wise leaders exist who will embrace workable solutions than we were a week ago.

Yes, our hope remains eternal.  We are encouraged by coalition efforts now underway to educate Alaskans about the high stakes involved and the need for action. 

Hard work by coalitions of dedicated Alaskans could lead to effective strategies for confronting Alaska's economic challenges.  

Rural Alaskans prizing their "subsistence lifestyle" are especially at risk by liberal tax and spending policies (i.e. created by elected officials of both parties) that have led to Alaska's epic, fiscal crisis.  After all, should modern rural education, health and transportation conveniences be lost, we could see migrations grow from rural to urban Alaska and Lower 48 destinations where the grass seems greener.   We hope our fellow citizens in rural Alaska are active in urban-led coalition efforts to undertake the hard but necessary decisions–which will require the adoption of many conservative principals that, heretofore, have not been widely embraced in much of the state's rural area.

We conclude by acknowledging that, hope and luck are not strategies to count on.  Only hard work, creativity, good planning, sacrifice and courage present the surest way to prevail over all epic challenges, including this one.

Yes, the next two days will be days of celebration.  But the celebration will only be looked back on if it led to heart felt resolutions of new behaviors.  Only new behaviors can produce new results that neutralize fiscal crisis.  Only new results and a robust new economy can produce a legacy worth passing on to new generations.

Wouldn't it be fulfilling if our kids celebrated our tough but successful decisions that removed our selfish debt burdens from their shoulders?  

Won't we question the value of our own lives and service if Alaska's economy continues its descent through malaise toward bankruptcy–with our support or acquiescence?

After all, "What can just one person do?"

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(Question: What if veterans of our foreign and domestic wars had embraced the alibi of, "What can just one person do?")

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Posted on December 29, 2015