"It's like Christmas every day now," Dunleavy said of Trump. Golden Age deficit nears $2 billion.
“It’s like Christmas every day now.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he opposes the idea of tying grants to schools for reading instruction to SB 113, the proposed tax that would collect from $25 million to $65 million a year from Outside businesses online.
This is one of the reasons that Dunleavy wants to veto the education funding bill, he told Alaska school superintendents in an online meeting that he refused to open to the press or the public. (His administration drafted the bill he says he now opposes.)
Dunleavy wants the reading grants, but he won’t propose any taxes to pay for them, which means he wants to add to his proposed deficit of nearly $2 billion.
He is financially irresponsible, a trait that is never really explained in the news coverage of his administration.
In April he vetoed a $250 million increase in education funding, claiming that he supported a $180 million increase.
The Legislature has now given him about what he wanted, minus a couple of items to take power away from local school boards and allow for more state control.
He didn’t get all he wanted, so he is opposed to the lower figure he found acceptable less a month ago.
In April, Dunleavy claimed the $180 million increase would “align with the state’s fiscal reality.”
He is still proposing a budget deficit of close to $2 billion.
The deficit is growing because oil prices have collapsed at the dawn of the Golden Age of Alaska.
Dunleavy took note of the drop in a May 6 letter to the finance committee leaders in the Legislature, saying there will be “hundreds of millions dollars less coming into the state treasury.”
On May 7 he wrote legislators saying he wants them to help come up with a fiscal plan this summer. This is the same dodge he has been rolling out every year or so since he became governor.
“Don’t be surprised if you hear some good news here in the next few weeks. Don’t be surprised if you hear a discussion of a special session just simply to focus on a fiscal plan,” Dunleavy predicted two years ago.
It’s no surprise that nothing happened two years ago. And nothing will happen as long as Dunleavy is in hiding, even though the state’s March update to the oil price guessbook has already been cast aside.
It turns out that energy dominance is so far nothing but a dumb slogan.
“We should only be focused on the most critical items to preserve our reduced cash flows and liquid reserves in this lower price environment,” Dunleavy warned legislators about the Golden Age of Alaska.
“It is unclear where changes in federal funds to Alaska and future oil prices may land with regard to our budget. The fiscal uncertainty compels us to make difficult decisions and separate our needs from our wants,” he said.
He has made no difficult decisions, as demonstrated by his proposed $2 billion Golden Age deficit.
It was way back on February 21st when Dunleavy told the right wingers at CPAC that everything had changed in Alaska the moment Trump was elected.
“It was like Christmas for me and I am 63 years old, so I was hopping all over the place,” he said.
The “Great Expansion” under Trump to create the Golden Age of America was in progress.
“Boy oh boy, the sun rose again on November 5th, that’s all I can tell you. It’s Christmas every day now,” he said.
Ho ho ho.
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