Category Archives: Speeches & Testimony

Over the weekend we prepared and submitted our comments to the House Finance Committee on the proposed House Operating Budget (HB 57).  Here was the summary:

Alaska is currently in an economic recession. We believe consideration of that fact should drive the evaluation this session of every bill touching on the state’s economy. Things that adversely affect the state’s overall economic situation — or unfairly treat some Alaskans economically compared with others — should either be amended to avoid those effects or rejected.

HB 57 certainly is one of those bills that touch on the state’s economy.

For the reasons explained below, we believe that, in its current form, HB 57 both worsens Alaska’s overall economic situation and unfairly treats some Alaskans. In other words, we believe that HB 57 worsens the recession for both Alaska and Alaskans.

In order to avoid those effects, we believe that HB 57 should be amended in certain respects.

Our full comments are here:

As regular readers will realize, at the request of Daniel Hamm, its Chair, we occasionally brief the Alaska Republican Assembly on the current status of state fiscal issues and our thoughts on how to deal with them.

We did that again this week, with a focus on what happened this past session(s), where that leaves the state’s fiscal condition, what the current outlook is as we start to think about FY 2018, and alternatives for dealing with that, admittedly somewhat initially dismal, outlook.

As explained in the presentation, I continue to believe there is a solid fiscal future ahead for Alaska — without resorting to permanent PFD cuts or significant taxes.  But it requires taking steps to implement Jay Hammond’s vision for Permanent Fund earnings and getting immediate control over what has become one of the biggest current expenses in state government — reimbursed oil credits.

This coming session may provide the last great chance to bring the state’s fiscal situation under control before more drastic measures become necessary.  The presentation outlines how we think that can be accomplished.

The update is above, or also available here (video) and here (slidedeck).

At the invitation of Daniel Hamm, on Tuesday evening of this week I spoke to the regular monthly meeting of the Alaska Republican Assembly on the current status of the Alaska budget in this legislative session.  The title of my presentation was “How to Finish This Session with a Sustainable Budget (and economy).”  A more detailed introduction to the presentation is here.  

Daniel went to the effort of filming (and perhaps the much greater effort of editing and uploading) the presentation and the Q&A session after. He has my most sincere appreciation for the effort.  The full video is about an hour and a half; perhaps more importantly, the Q&A session begins at about the 53:00 minute mark.  The YouTube is below and I have provided another copy of the slidedeck I used below that if you want to follow along.

At the invitation of Daniel Hamm, the Chair, yesterday evening I spoke to the regular monthly meeting of the Alaska Republican Assembly.  Dan had asked that I brief the organization on the current status of the Alaska budget.  The title of my presentation was “How to Finish This Session with a Sustainable Budget (and economy).”

The presentation focuses on four issues:

• What level of revenue should the budget use as a baseline.
• Oil & gas tax credits.
• The Operating & Capital budgets.
• PFD cuts and other taxes.

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