Each week during the legislative session, various interest groups and lawmakers will host catered lunches as a way of drawing staffers to learn about their pet issues. Often, the selling point is the pizza or the sandwiches. But this Thursday, the food was beside the point. A standing-room-only crowd gathered to watch a special budget presentation that had been discussed in murmurs for weeks. APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez reports that the outlook was somewhere between gloomy and apocalyptic.
The Legislative Finance director’s model illustrated what he had long been saying: “You simply cannot cut your way to a sustainable budget.”
Manipulating an Excel spreadsheet with dozens of inputs, David Teal showed what would happen if the state cut formula programs, added a variety of taxes, and shrunk its agencies. None of the actions taken on their own made any difference. At projected oil prices, the state still does not close its multi-billion-dollar deficit.
Teal played with one scenario where the Legislature cuts its budget by 12 percent each year until the state’s $1.4 billion education program was shrunk to $400 million. When the model continued to show a deficit, the audience muttered a few “wows.” House Finance Co-Chair Steve Thompson had to stop Teal at another scenario. Whole agency operations were shut down — and still, the state faced a shortfall.
Rep. Les Gara, an Anchorage Democrat who was in attendance, said he did find value in seeing the hard numbers, even if he would have liked to see more attention to the effect different policies on oil taxes and credits have on the state budget.
“I think it’s worthwhile to have over, and over, and over again for the public to see all over the state so they can plug in numbers,” said Gara. “Look, if they’re oil tax people, they can say, ‘What would oil tax changes do?’ If they believe in other sources of revenue, they can plug in those numbers. But I think it’s important to lead to an honest public discussion.”
Via alaskapublic.org
image credit APEonline
