Contributed by Bill Walker
This election comes down to courage. Jay Hammond told us we would have to make hard fiscal decisions at some point. But until 2014, we'd never had political leaders with the necessity and courage to do it. As governor, I had to make decisions rooted in the state’s future, not my own. My duty to lead overrode any inclination to appease.
For too long, our budget has been more than 90% reliant on oil. Soon after I took office, the price of oil collapsed to $26 a barrel and Alaska had the largest budget deficit of any state in the country. We knew that before we made any changes to revenue, we needed to show Alaskans that we were willing to cut the budget. We reduced the budget by $1.7B. We have closed 40 state facilities, eliminated 100 state programs, and reduced government by 3,000 employees. We reduced spending levels to their lowest level since 2007.
But everyone knew that we couldn’t cut our way out of this crisis. Rather than take action, the legislature refused resisted and instead spent down our savings, $14 billion in fact. Just think of all the infrastructure projects that could have been funded across the state for $14 billion.
The Legislature's failure to act also meant that we were in danger of killing the Dividend and destroying the Permanent Fund. Legislators made it clear they were putting their own political careers ahead of Alaska's future.
I reduced the Dividend in the short term in order to protect the Fund long into the future. Every dollar that I vetoed out of the Dividend went back into the Fund in order to grow the account and secure this vital program for generations to come.
It’s the same thing we do with our fisheries. We allow salmon to escape upstream so that there are salmon for future generations. We invested a portion of the dividend back into the fund in order to grow the Fund and the Dividend for future generations.
We simply will not compromise this state’s future by making unsustainable political promises and decisions in an election year. We will do the trench work. We are committed now more than ever to digging in to ensure that Alaska continues to provide for its citizens – and that state savings and the Permanent Fund Dividend last for generations, not an election cycle.
Politicians will make a lot of promises, but I encourage you: don't listen to what they say, look at what they've done. Mike Dunleavy and Kevin Meyer voted for the two largest budgets in state history before I took office. They also could have overridden the PFD veto in 2016. Instead they put out press releases. This year, the Legislature passed a fiscal plan compromise confirming the decisions that we made in 2016. However, Dunleavy had already resigned from his Senate seat and thus avoided this critical vote for Alaska’s future.
The decisions we've made on the PFD and the Fiscal Plan have been tough. But here's what we can now do because we had the courage to make those decisions:
o We've closed 80% of our budget deficit.
o We've gone from over 90% reliant on oil to less than 30%.
o We're able to forward fund education instead of pink slipping our teachers.
o We're able to reinvest in public safety and pay our troopers a living wage.
o We can now issue general bonds for a capital budget that will put Alaskans to work fixing our burgeoning deferred maintenance liability.
o We've ended the broken system of rewarding failure by paying legislators’ per diem when they don't pass a budget on time.
o We’ve reduced state Medicaid spending by accepting Medicaid Expansion while providing 44,000 additional Alaskans with health coverage. Medicaid Expansion reduced the State budget by $17 million and brought nearly $1 billion in federal revenue to Alaska.
o We've restored our credit rating from negative to stable, bringing jobs and investment back to Alaska.
o The 2018 PFD will be $1,600, the eighth highest dividend since its inception in 1982. The PFD now projects to grow for future generations rather than run the risk of lasting for just one more election cycle.
That’s what we can now do because of the tough decisions that we have made. The biggest threat to our Permanent Fund and our economy is politicians who would rather talk a big game than make tough decisions.
The bottom line is I'm not here to win a popularity contest. I'm here to do a job. I'm not a pedigreed politician; I'm a carpenter. I tell the truth, and when I see a problem, I try to fix it. That’s what you will get with a Walker Mallott administration.
We are determined to finish what we started, the job Alaskans sent us to do, and to always put Alaska’s best interests over our own.