Monthly Archives: October 2013

Alaska’s “Tom DeLay Republicans” and why Sean Parnell will lose the 2014 Governor’s race …

Posted on October 29, 2013 | Comments Off on Alaska’s “Tom DeLay Republicans” and why Sean Parnell will lose the 2014 Governor’s race …

ARP_LogoYesterday afternoon I understand an Alaska Republican Party official used a meeting I regularly attend — but did not yesterday — to go negative about me.

Not that he was very creative in doing so.  Claiming to have done “opposition research,” he appears simply to have duplicated the same script that already had been offered about a month ago to Amanda Coyne, probably the best of Alaska’s political columnists.

Here was her response: Continue reading →

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Posted in Immediate Reactions

The Alaska Business Plan: What I intend to talk about Thursday evening

Posted on October 22, 2013 | Comments Off on The Alaska Business Plan: What I intend to talk about Thursday evening
The Alaska Business Plan (10.24.2013)

Click above for full slidedeck.

One of the things that is critical in the race for Governor and legislature this coming election cycle is for the candidates to spell out their vision for how Alaska survives the challenges it faces in the coming decade.  What the state looks like in the 2020’s and beyond largely will be shaped in the next four years.  As the University of Alaska-Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) has said: Continue reading →

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Posted in Speeches & Testimony

Why Alaska Needs to Reduce State Spending (and how to do it) (from the October 2013 Alaska Business Monthly)

Posted on October 4, 2013 | Comments Off on Why Alaska Needs to Reduce State Spending (and how to do it) (from the October 2013 Alaska Business Monthly)

October 2013 Alaska Business MonthlyIn addition to pieces on this page and elsewhere, I write a monthly op-ed column on oil, gas and fiscal policy issues for the Alaska Business Monthly.  The following piece was originally published in the October 2013 print edition and is available online here.

Based on state Office of Management and Budget data, over the last decade annual state government general fund spending—operating and capital combined—has nearly tripled, from roughly $2.3 billion in FY 2004 to a now-projected $7.1 billion for FY 2014.

Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has only increased by 27 percent. Continue reading →

Comments Off on Why Alaska Needs to Reduce State Spending (and how to do it) (from the October 2013 Alaska Business Monthly)

Posted in Published Commentaries, The Monthly Lead/Alaska Business Monthly